Eve of the Eternal
by Ancalagar the Dragon Lord
Summary: Part 1 of "The Perennials" series: REVISED VERSION. Nobody was there to save Rose Tyler at Torchwood, and she fell into the Void. When disaster strikes at Torchwood again, the Doctor, Donna, Jack, and Martha all find themselves there again.
1. Chapter 1: Prologue: This Wednesday

Chapter 1:

Prologue: This Wednesday

London, Torchwood Tower, August 8th, 2007

The week has a Wednesday, the year fifty-two, wars an indefinite quantity. But this war had only one day, and that was Wednesday.

On this Wednesday...

Adeola Oshodi met her cousins Martha and Leticia Jones for lunch. The hour following was enjoyable but perfectly ordinary. Adeola had ordered a ham sandwich and a bit of salad. Martha opted for some soup. Tish gagged on a bitter piece of cheese in her wrap. She had overslept that day, and already was a bit grumpy. A man sat nearby reading a newspaper, and the front page was also ordinary. A British soldier had died in Baghdad. The new Harry Potter book had sold more copies in two weeks than _Gone with the Wind_ had in decades. A man named Harold Saxon had started a campaign for the Prime Minister.

Martha had finally gotten an internship at the Royal Hope hospital, and would be training there for the next two semesters. Tish was applying for a job at a research lab. Adeola had just found a new boyfriend, but couldn't talk about her job. She simply told them that she was a secretary at Canary Wharf.

At ten past, they went their ways and returned to work. The ghost shift would come on in ten minutes.

Adeola went back to work.

She and her boyfriend sneaked into the renovations for a snog.

She never came home that day.

On this Wednesday...

Yvonne Hartman watched excitedly as a blue box materialized in front of the soldiers in the storage unit. After more than one hundred and twenty years of study, tracking, and waiting, he had come. Queen Victoria's institute had finally tracked down the enemy of the state, and it was under Yvonne's leadership. Some questioned her motives, but one day she and many others would be viewed as a hero of the Second British Empire. She waited with baited breath as the Tardis finally shifted into full view. It was August 8th, 2007. It was Torchwood's finest hour.

On this Wednesday...

Dr. Rajesh Singh worked on his Sudoku book. He was bored, but it was more pleasant to stare at the empty squares than to look up at that _thing_. The room was full of all sorts of technical apparatuses, with all sorts of uses, but they had all availed nothing. That thing was nothing. That thing couldn't exist, and he despised it and recoiled from it and was fascinated by it _because_ it didn't exist.

On this Wednesday...

Jack Harkness lay back in his station at the Hub in Cardiff, his eyes fixed on the monitor, watching the energy of the Cardiff Rift, but his mind was elsewhere. Something about today's date brought his mind back to the history textbooks in his home century. There was something significant about August 8th, 2007, but he couldn't remember what.

He shook his head absentmindedly. It was Hiroshima day a few days ago; perhaps August 6th, 1945 was what he was thinking of. He remembered that day too.

He would remember this Wednesday.

A ghost appeared in the room.

It shifted into clearer focus.

A metal hand grabbed his shoulder, and Jack blacked out. When he came to, all of his colleagues, except a quaking Suzie Costello, were dead.

On this Wednesday,

On this sunny, bright summer day…

On this bright, summer day, it was silent, and smoke silently rose into the air, carrying with it the tears of the living and the blood of the dead.

On this Wednesday, August 8th, 2007,

Five million Cybermen invaded Earth.

Twenty million Daleks escaped the Time War.

Three hundred thousand humans died all across the world, and

Rose Tyler fell into the Void.

* * *

White. Blank. Empty. It had texture, but it was cold plaster. It contained no warmth, no feeling, no soul, just an impassive, mocking wall. He placed his cheek on the cool plaster, then pressed his ear to the wall, listening hard for he knew not what. But there was no sound. It was empty. It was void. There was nothing. That was the sound of nothing.

He stepped back, still running his hand on the white paint, a part of him clinging desperately to one last hope, that though he could not hear her, somehow he'd be able to feel her. But there was nothing, no indication, no sign, not the smallest trace of her warmth that he still could reminiscently feel. She was gone. Rose Tyler was gone.

The Doctor finally took his hand from the wall, staring blankly at the offending barrier. How long he stood there, he knew not. It was only the distant sound of sirens outside that brought him back to the present, and he turned around, turning away from the loss, turning away from her, abandoning her, losing her. He stepped away, moving on, leaving, going, always running, because he had to. Walking numbly across the chamber to the exit, he didn't look back. He couldn't. He wasn't strong enough.

He didn't stop walking. The Doctor slowly descended the stairs, barely noticing the forty-five floors he slowly passed. Numbers… numbers were meaningless. They were cold, soulless, amoral. Six six six, but it was meaningless. She was gone, and it seemed to him that nothing was worth anything.

But his face remained as blank as the taunting wall upstairs. The shock of what had just happened was so great that he couldn't feel at all. It was all too much. He passed several motionless bodies on the floor, but he couldn't look at them. The numbness intensified. He passed two chambers, and the smell of burnt flesh and blood reached his nostrils, but he barely noticed. A journey of what his own senses told him was eight minutes and fifty-two seconds seemed to be an eternity, but finally he found himself staring at the blue police box blankly. Then, willing himself forward, he reached into his pocket and produced a key from within. His hand shaking violently, the Doctor managed to fit it into the lock and turned. The door swung open with a creak, and he stepped inside the Tardis and slowly closed the door, finally resting his head upon it, unmoving.

Her eyes had been closed, but her face was not peaceful. She had not screamed, but the terror was pronounced. But she was brave, even to the very end, valiantly facing her end with dignity.

Valiantly… _The Valiant Child will die in battle so very soon. _

And the Doctor had denied it, telling her that it was a lie. She accepted that, but he knew she didn't really believe him. He had felt the storm coming, and he knew that in the last days she had felt it too.

Finally, he admitted the horrible truth of those condemning words: at twenty, Rose Marion Tyler was dead.

It was then that a strange sound broke the silence, a pulsating ambience, a quiet but pronounced and rushed tempo, and he turned to look at the console, listening closely as he saw her face appear on the monitor. Then he realized that the Tardis was softly crying.

Something in him broke, and he cried too.

…

**This is a redraft of my original story, which I've felt I ought to revise for a while, though I'll leave the old version up too. "Eve of the Eternal" is the first part of a series I've started called "The Perennials," which is basically what I'd have done if I was writing "Doctor Who." **

**As is visible in this prologue, the main change I made occurs in Series 2: Pete Tyler fails to jump in and save Rose at the last moment, and she therefore falls into the Void. But the story "Eve of the Eternal" actually starts during Series 4, just after the episode "Midnight." **


	2. Chapter 2: The Tempest

**This chapter contains a couple of small revisions from the old version. Details are at the end of the chapter.**

Chapter 2:

The Tempest

_A repetitious, high-pitched sound filled her ears, and instinctively she slammed her fingers down upon the snooze button. It was 7:30. She groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes faintly and half-expecting to hear her mother bustling around the kitchen, but it was quiet. She muttered to herself for a moment, far more inclined to return to sleep, but she had to get up. That was life. And so she slid out of bed and stretched her back out before taking a step forward to quit her room and enter the kitchen. _

_She was seated at the kitchen table, a couple of slices of toast before her, and a newspaper flung carelessly on the table, but for some reason she couldn't quite see the words, as though they were words she couldn't actually see. She shook her head and picked up one of the pieces of toast, glancing away from the paper and out the window, where she could see a couple of people outside wandering around outside, but she paid them no further attention. She started to eat; there were no crumbs on the plate or on the table. _

_She was standing at a bus stop, waiting for one of the double-deckers to drive by. She was dimly aware of someone standing next to her, and glancing up, she saw a blond man in a gray sweater and red sweats. Somehow his face wasn't really in focus, but somehow this meant little to her._

_The red double decker finally pulled over, and she stepped inside, where she was shocked to see a familiar blonde woman driving the bus, who turned to her with a stern look. "Right, you've only got this until six o'clock, so get on with it."_

"_Mum, where the hell did you get that from?" she asked in surprise. _

"_Rodrigo," her mother replied. "He owes me a favor. Never mind why, but you were right about your dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and it's exactly what he would have done."_

_And then she blinked, and sat up. London, the bus, and her mother had all vanished. Something was different. _

…

June 2nd, 2010

The residents of London woke up this morning to a thick, gray cloud cover which rolled in from the Atlantic, not at all an unusual condition, but upon stepping outside, they discovered that it was unusually cold for June. The weather forecast predicted a light rainfall later that day. They were correct that it would rain. They were not correct that it would be a light drizzle.

By noon, it was raining so hard that the gutters overflowed and flooded the streets, where people waded to their daily business. Martha Jones was among them, soaked even through her raincoat, and very glad that she had some dry clothes to change into at work. It was her time off, a privilege that she didn't often enjoy at UNIT; she was a doctor, and not a normal private, but for that reason Martha was quite often needed at the base, whether to study some new life form that UNIT recovered from extraterrestrial visits, or simply to fix up injuries that the soldiers occasionally sustained in their training.

Were it not for her coming promotion, Martha was sure that she'd still be stuck at the base. But she'd be sent to New York in a few weeks, and her new rank granted her some extra shore leave, and now she was walking down a minor street to buy herself some lunch, wishing she'd taken her car.

A flash of lighting lit up the sky, followed by an earsplitting crash. Martha drew her hood tighter, but her hair was already very wet, and this did her little good. Glancing at the sky, a strange feeling of foreboding came upon her, because the last time it had rained this hard, a whole hospital had been scooped up to the Moon, and in one day her life had dramatically changed.

After a few minutes, Martha spotted a café a few paces away, and hurried past a Woolworth and a movie rental, then hastily opened a door and hurried inside.

"Better you than me!" called out a blonde girl standing behind the counter.

Martha shivered at the sudden warmth, and made her way to a table, but didn't sit down. Glancing at the waitress, she asked, "D' you mind me sitting here? I don't want to soak your furniture."

The girl bent down behind the counter, apparantly rummaging for something, then straightened and bustled over, before laying a few dish towels on the cushioned chair. "That should do it," she said cheerfully. "D'you want me to take your coat?"

"Thanks," Martha mumbled as she discarded the wet garment. As the waitress hurried away with the raincoat, Martha took her seat, still shivering. Another rumble sounded outside, and Martha looked at the television set hanging from the ceiling, where the BBC was broadcasting a report that the city would probably have to close down the Thames in case of flooding.

"It's practically flooding already," Martha muttered sarcastically as a couple of huddled girls walked past the window under a blue umbrella, though this did them little good.

She consulted the menu, a list printed on some cheap copy paper that was left on her table. After a few minutes, she decided that chicken soup and a cup of coffee were just the thing for her today, and called the waitress over.

…

_Something had changed. She could feel it in the air, but she could see no visible alteration. _

_She stepped outside the library and onto the balcony overlooking the sea and gazed at the horizon, where the twin suns were coming to a set, or as close to a set as was possible, considering what part of Ethrae she dwelt on… if she even truly dwelt here. _

_In truth, she wondered how much of this place, as peaceful as it was, was reality. But there was no consistency. Something was telling her that the Helials should be there too, but it was always empty. The planet was empty. And that voice, that artificial voice which she always heard, as though someone was there and was not there, it whispered things, numbers mostly, but it haunted her. And sometimes she saw strange rooms and strange hallways filled with technologies she recognized but never learnt. _

_Did she constantly dream? Or was this existence a dream itself?_

_Perhaps that was why something didn't feel right. It was nothing she could pinpoint, but she could sense it. After a moment of quiet reflection, she turned and retreated into the library, and stood before one of the bookshelves, browsing across the varying labels, before finally picking a promising-looking volume. She then settled herself in an armchair, and began to read. _

_Something had gone wrong, and she was going to find out what. _

…

The computer screen had energy readings, but there were no blips, no significant changes since the night before. The long-range scans made a full survey of the surrounding exosphere and five astronomical units beyond, detecting nothing apart from three small asteroids and a comet slowly moving past Mars; the SUV was clean and the Weevils were fed. In short, Torchwood was experiencing the unthinkable: complete boredom.

Unable to stand leaning back in his chair and continue watching the news discuss rain, Captain Jack Harkness stood and walked out of his office to see Gwen Cooper by Tosh's computer, dusting off the screen; since there was nothing else to do, Gwen had spent the morning tidying up.

"Still no change?" Jack asked wearily, nodding at the now clean computer screen.

Gwen shook her head. ""Everything's normal," she replied. "There's a big pile of trash in the front that somebody needs to take out, there's gum on the floor by the Weevils, Ianto's gone upstairs for some lunch, and his work station is filthy, as is your desk."

Jack scowled. "Don't touch my desk."

"I'm not planning to," snorted Gwen. "Knowing you, there's a lot of material there I don't want to know about, judging by the new downloads I just found on this computer, and don't try to tell me that Ianto did it."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "What were you doing snooping on the computer?"

"You're not the only one who uses it," Gwen countered. "If Tosh was still alive, she'd kill you."

"I'm immortal," he reminded her.

"She'd find a way." Stepping back from the computer, Gwen flung the rag she'd been using in a bin, and looked at her watch. "Maybe I should go home."

Jack shrugged. "You might as well."

Gwen nodded and put on her poncho, which she'd flung over the chair at her station. "Have you seen my umbrella?"

The other shook his head, but Gwen merely shrugged and started toward the back exit.

"If you see Ianto," Jack called, "tell him to go home too. I'll give you both a call if something comes up."

…

_She closed the book with a snap as the voice began whispering again, and suddenly she knew. Glancing around the library, she suddenly felt more alert than she had been for many years. The ship was repaired, and all tasks were done. The last neural connection had been made, and she knew everything. Suddenly everything was clear, everything that was wrong, and what was more, the breach had reopened. _

_Two realities, that was the answer: one physical, one born of the subconscious, and she was trapped in one of them. But no longer! She could leave; the breach was open. It was a chance, an opportunity to escape from an eternal prison, if she could just find the strength to fight her captor…_

_Closing her eyes, she focused as hard as she could. Then she could see it: a mechanical hand reached for a control panel in some other reality—she knew not what—but it was the connection she needed. But then a sudden wave of exhaustion swept over her, and the hand faltered. Her eyes were already closed, but she seemed to sink further into the blackness. But the other, the second presence, the foreign voice grew louder as she weakened. Her captor was already fighting back._

_Opening her eyes, she struggled to stay awake. _

"_Oh no you don't!" she hissed angrily. "I will not continue as your slave!"_

_With an almighty effort, she moved the hand forward until it made contact with the control, and she concentrated harder. _

_There was a roar, and a flash of sparks; then they were falling. The ship was falling out of her prison, but she also was falling further into the darkness. The library was fading all around her, and her limbs felt heavy. Still, she struggled, because she had to. It was her only way out; she had to stay conscious and fight her captor long enough to find the right Doctor. _

_With one last effort, she opened her eyes and shouted out at the emptiness before losing consciousness: _

"_Ten thousand years of incarceration, but no more!" _

…

At about one o' clock in the afternoon, a tremendous crash echoed across London, but nobody immediately looked toward the source of the noise, not in a thunderstorm; nobody except those on the Isle of Dogs. The bang was so loud that they could all feel the round quivering beneath their feet. Near London's tallest tower, a couple of people even lost balance and fell over.

As soon as it was over, they looked around in mild surprise before returning to their errands, until a voice shouted out, "Holy shit!" and they looked in the direction he indicated, to Canary Wharf.

At about the same time, Martha Jones ate her soup in a small but respectable café. She was deep in thought, and therefore didn't pay attention to the BBC until the waitress let out a surprised exclamation, drawing her attention to the breaking news report: an explosion at One Canada Square, about halfway up the tallest skyscraper in England. A wall of flame erupted from within, consuming at least five floors, and debris had blasted from the tower in every direction. Images of smoke emerging from the burning tower appeared on every news station in Britain. They all saw it. They simply didn't know that it was no ordinary explosion.

At about one o' clock in the afternoon, the Rift's energy readings on Toshiko Sato's computer suddenly spiked. But Ianto Jones was out having his lunch, Gwen Cooper had already left for the day, and Jack Harkness stood in the cryo-chamber, staring at a cryogenics capsule which no one had dared to open or even touch for weeks, labeled "Gray."

He wasn't looking at Tosh's computer. No one was looking. None of the remaining Torchwood employees saw the energy spike.

In a time ship far across the universe, there was no particular date or time, but the Tardis felt something new and almost unnatural. She couldn't pinpoint it, nor could she identify it, but for a split second, she felt something strange. Something was wrong, but she couldn't tell what.

In a time ship far across the universe, there was no particular date or time, but the Time Lord, still recovering from an unsettling incident on the planet Midnight, wasn't looking when it happened. He did not see the unique signal flash across the monitor, nor did he feel his time ship falter.

…

**Revisions for Chapter 2: This chapter is very similar to the one in the old version, but I've also put in a few additions to the entire dream sequence (by the way, I thought of this story long before I saw "Inception" so I'm not stealing from anything that I know of in those scenes), as well as some extra detail. The major revisions are in the future chapters, and they particularly involve character role and development. **

**By the way, June 2****nd****, 2010 (the date I gave for this story) was a Wednesday, referring to the previous chapter. I wish I'd thought of this when I first wrote this.**

**Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave reviews!**


	3. Chapter 3: The White Guardian

Chapter 3:

The White Guardian

"Seems that every time I come here, the place has to be torn apart."

Martha looked at Jack, worried. "You all right?"

He nodded, a subdued expression visible on his face. "Not easy to come here for some of us. It's especially hard on Ianto. You could see that."

"Yeah, I'm told that he lost his girlfriend here."

"You could say that." Jack glanced at the tent flap. Ianto was standing outside, talking to Colonel Mace in hushed tones. Ten minutes earlier, Magambo had left to assemble a UNIT team for Jack to work with; Gwen had gone with her, leaving the officers' tent empty except for Jack and Martha.

"I lost my cousin Adeola," Martha went to the coffee maker and poured herself another cup. "Wonder if Ianto knew her."

There was quiet pause–the only sound was the rain beating upon the tent ceiling, and some shouting outside–which was broken by the clink when Jack placed his cup on the tabletop.

"After we got back from the Valiant," he said hesitantly, stirring his coffee with his spoon, "I did some research. I dug up statements made by survivors, lists of the dead, lists of Torchwood employees, and even looked at films from security cameras in the building. Your cousin died on the top floor, just feet away from the breach the Cybermen came through. They did something to her head…"

Jack didn't elaborate, something Martha was half-thankful for. She shut her eyes as the old pain of Adeola's death made a small jab. She had seen her cousin less than an hour before it happened; they'd had lunch together with Tish. Martha had accepted her cousin's death many months ago, but she had wondered how Adeola had died ever since she heard of the battle. Hearing it caused that old grief to briefly resurface.

"The last death in the battle also was on the top floor." Jack looked up from his coffee to meet Martha's eyes. "It was caught on film… she was the friend that I lost, me and the Doctor."

Martha nodded sympathetically. "Rose."

Jack shut his eyes, but his expression didn't hold grief or pain, just sadness. "She gave her life to save everyone, you know. She let go to finish what the Doctor started. I know this sounds heartless of me, but she had a good death… and that's exactly how she'd have wanted to go."

His voice had never wavered as he spoke, but as he finished, he sighed. "She didn't even have a grave. Just a name on a plaque."

"I wish I could have met her." Martha sipped her coffee, now cool enough to drink. Jack smiled.

"I think you and Rose would have been great friends. Personality-wise, you have a lot in common with her, although the fact that you both fell in love with the Doctor might have driven a wedge between you."

Martha raised an eyebrow. "So did you," she shot back.

Jack snorted. "And probably everyone who's traveled with him… except perhaps Mickey. Now that… I can't see it."

Martha laughed, though unsure of who this Mickey was. "Oh, I don't know about that. You haven't met Donna yet."

Jack shrugged, still grinning. When Martha stopped chuckling, she gave Jack a small smile. "Thanks for telling me about Adeola. She and I were close. I've wondered how she died for a while now."

"Thanks for listening to me talk about Rose's death." Jack leaned back in his chair, smiling stoically. "She was like a sister to me."

At that moment, Ianto poked his head through the entrance. "Jack, Magambo's back; she's got a dozen soldiers that she's placing under your command for today. You and Martha had better come outside."

"Goodie!" Jack's voice was cheerful as he stood abruptly, and dashed outside, a worrisome grin plastered onto his face. Martha just managed to keep up.

* * *

"_Offline."_

_The Doctor looked over to the source of the sound, to see that Rose's lever slowly moved downwards. Even as it moved, he could see the Daleks' descent in the Void beginning to slow. _

_Then he saw Rose reaching for the lever, trying to grab it and pull it back online while maintaining her grasp upon her Magnaclamp; but the Doctor could see that the lever had already moved beyond her reach. Rose realized this too, and before the Doctor could react, before he could protest, she let go of the Magnaclamp and leapt forward, grabbing hold of the lever. But the Void's pull was relentless, and Rose struggled to force the lever back into position. _

_The Doctor opened his mouth to shout in dismay, but Rose, seeing him, cried, "I've got to get it upright!"_

_Presently, Rose's strength seemed to be greater than the vacuum; she resisted its pull long enough to shove the lever back into a vertical position. As the computer voice said, "Online, and locked," the remaining Daleks flew over the Doctor's shoulder and into oblivion. But he had eyes only for the potentially deadly scene taking place across the room from him, and he was powerless to stop it. _

"_Rose, hold on!" he cried, reaching in vain toward her. _

_She struggled helplessly, clutching the lever frantically, but the pull proved to be too strong for her: it was though gravity had rotated to the side, and that lever was her only lifeline. Even from his viewpoint, however, the Doctor could see that Rose's fingers were growing tired, but the vacuum pulled harder than ever. _

_Rose's face then turned in his direction, and the Doctor's hearts seemed to stop as he took in the sorrowful expression on her countenance. All time seemed to slow in that once second, in which Rose's eyes met his. _

"_Goodbye, Doctor," she mouthed. Then she surrendered, and let go. _

_He screamed. He screamed her name and reached out to her, hoping against hope that this was just a nightmare, that he would wake up to find her in the library or in her bedroom, perfectly fine, but it was a delusion._

_It only took a few seconds, but to him it felt like a whole lifetime as Rose was enveloped in white light. Her eyes were shut, almost peaceful, until all he saw was her hand, still reaching out for him. _

_Then she was gone. There was a howl, followed by a sigh, the soft rustle of wind blowing back, leaving complete silence as the breach closed. All that remained was a blank, white wall._

The Doctor woke with a start and sat up, looking around the darkness frantically. Then he saw the analog clock he had set up on the wall opposite, and realized that he had been dreaming. Except that was no dream. That was a memory, his worst memory, apart from the destruction of Gallifrey, playing out in his subconscious: the Battle of Canary Wharf, the day he had lived his worst nightmare.

The Doctor placed his head in his hands, as a fresh wave of grief overcame him. He felt the pain of her loss every day, but he hadn't felt it so acutely in a long time.

In the months after that battle, the Doctor had truly wanted to die, for the first time in his life. He remembered standing as the Racnoss drowned, not caring if the Thames swallowed him as well. He remembered allowing the Plasmavore to drain his blood, taking comfort in the coming darkness. He had even pleaded with that Dalek, begging it to kill him. He had begged for death then, because every day he thought of Rose and her ultimate fate, and he wanted to die too.

"Why do I survive, when I cannot have anything worth living for?" he had screamed to no one, after he left Donna at her home that eventful Christmas day. He had frightened Donna that day, because even she could see the instability of his mind. He knew that he had frightened Martha too, repeatedly; but the person the Doctor's sudden longing for death frightened the most was himself.

Martha, however, proved to be his salvation; her presence had been a comfort to him. Just having someone to listen had taught him to give life another chance.

Sighing in resignation, the Doctor reached to his bedside table and opened a drawer. Rummaging around inside until he found what he was looking for, he pulled a handkerchief from within. He wiped the tears from his face and the sweat from his brow, then sat up, suddenly feeling older and more tired than ever. Rose had always made him feel young again, but she was lost. The blessing was lost.

He stood quietly and quitted the room, making his way through the labyrinth of corridors until he reached the console room, which was only dimly lit. The incident on Midnight, which still chilled him, had left him feeling very drained and withdrawn. A quick glance at the Tardis screen told him that he had slept more than was normal for him: a good six hours.

"Hmm," he muttered to himself in surprise. "Last time I slept that much…"

No sooner had he voiced this thought, when a sudden, alarming thought struck him. Perhaps the creature from Midnight had done more damage than he realized. The thought of Donna's reaction to a sudden change in his appearance (especially since he hadn't told her about it yet) made him leap up, and he made his way back toward the corridor in search of a mirror.

"You have not regenerated, if that's what's alarmed you," an amused voice said.

The Doctor jumped, and whirling around, he saw an older man standing by the console, a faint white glow about him, a man the Doctor recognized instantly, but had not seen for many decades. His jaw dropped.

"Hello, Doctor. It's been a long time, for you, at least."

The White Guardian smiled serenely at the Doctor, who recollected himself, and shut his mouth. He blinked, unsure of how to react to the Guardian's unexpected appearance in his Tardis. The Doctor stepped backward, surveying the visitor. The White Guardian was dressed, as usual, entirely in white. He wore a white wide-brimmed hat, and a white beard… in fact, he looked exactly as he did when the Doctor first encountered him.

That encounter had launched him into a long, dangerous mission with a new companion, now long dead. The Doctor didn't regret that mission, but the memory of this event caused him to feel a slight foreboding at the White Guardian's new presence.

This caused the "Hello," he meant to say, to come out as "What do you want?"

The Guardian looked unfazed by this rude greeting. "I've come here to give you a message and a warning."

"Which is?"

The other paused, and glanced at the Tardis console, a contemplative expression on his face. The Doctor waited as the Guardian scrutinized the rotor, his white eyebrows elevated, before he turned back to meet the Doctor's.

"This is perhaps the last time you will ever see me," he began. "You see, the Universe is moving into a new era. The time of the Guardians is over. Until now, time in this reality was very much watched and sometimes tampered with by Gallifreyan civilization. You know, as well as I do, that though they had sworn never to interfere with other species, the Time Lords' presence was both a blessing and a curse to this Universe."

The Doctor frowned, unsure of what this is was leading to.

"But the Time War changed everything," the Guardian continued. "Many of the old rules have been suspended. The time has come for you to truly move on."

A stab of anger flashed through the Doctor.

"Yeah, and where were you throughout all that, Mr. I-will-stop-eternal-chaos White Guardian?" he snapped bitterly. "Fat lot of help you and the Eternals and the Guardians were throughout the Time War!"

Again, the Guardian looked unperturbed. "The Guardians had foreseen the Time War long ago," he said. "We knew that you would be the great survivor. Why else do you think I chose you to search for the Key of Time? You did a very wise thing when you destroyed it. Call it my little test: could you do what was right, choose good over power? That day, you proved your worth."

This did nothing to assuage the Doctor's anger. "You knew all that time!" he shouted.

The White Guardian raised an eyebrow. "The age of the Time Lords is over, _but you are not the last Time Lord._"

The Doctor's mouth dropped.

"Do not continue to believe, for one minute, that you and the Master were the only survivors," the Guardian continued sternly. "Do not continue to wallow in grief for Gallifrey. You are not the last Time Lord, but you are the sole chosen Time Lord, chosen from the moment you first looked into the Untempered Schism, as you well know."

The Doctor shivered, his expression dark and distant.

"For what I mainly came to inform you," the Guardian added, "I am here to tell you that you and two others were chosen to be the catalysts of the new age."

The Doctor hadn't expected that. He frowned, scrutinizing the Guardian, and wondering in annoyance why these eternal entities always had to talk in riddles.

"Who are the two others?" he asked.

"They are not Time Lords, but they are both very unique in their own ways." The Guardian smiled at him again, his expression kind, but the Doctor felt more confused than ever. Then the Guardian shrugged, and elaborated, "You have already met them. One is exiled to Earth until he learns responsibility; other than that, you need not worry about him. The other, however, is currently imprisoned beyond space-time."

For the first time, the Guardian's smile faded into a serious expression. "You _must_ help the third one."

The Doctor sat down on the captain's chair, and he turned away, opting to look at the Tardis screen.

"The Time War ended a long time ago," he finally said apprehensively. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because the new era is beginning now," the Guardian said. "You will imminently find yourself in a position true to your title that will stretch you past the breaking point. The third chosen individual's reappearance in your life will undoubtedly be a great emotional shock to you, but your friend is desperate need of assistance, and was put in that situation a long time ago by a race that soon will replace the Daleks as your most dangerous enemies."

Once the Guardian had uttered these words, the Doctor turned to look at him again. "Who is this person?" he inquired, his voice intense. "And what is this race?"

"That is for me to know and you to find out," the Guardian said evasively, playing with his sleeve. Then he looked away, his expression distant. "My time here has run its course. Prepare yourself, Doctor. It begins now."

With those enigmatic words, the White Guardian faded from view, leaving a very confused Time Lord. The Doctor stared after him, his mind spinning, unsure of what action to take or what to think. But his thoughts were interrupted by a loud trill coming from the controls.

Martha Jones' phone was ringing.

* * *

_The transmission channel had closed, and Rose stepped back, wearied by the struggle she'd made to keep it open. But she could not afford to stop. Every fiber of her being, or what was left of it, was screaming for release. She would never stop, never falter, determined to break out if it took a million years. _

"_I recognize you."_

_Rose leapt up and wheeled around, startled by the quiet statement, the all-too familiar mechanical voice that had uttered it. Standing exactly where the hologram of the redhead had been moments before, was a tall mechanical humanoid, made entirely of steel, with empty eyes and what looked like handle bars flanking the sides of its head. The Cyberman looked directly at Rose, who backed away in shock. _

"_How did you get here?" she whispered. "You're dead. You're all dead. I saw it."_

_The Cyberman ignored the question. "I recognize you," it repeated. "Your name is Rose Marion Tyler."_

_Rose said nothing. How could a Cyberman be here? For so long, there had been nobody except her and Eve; this was a different reality, untouched by all the old threats, inaccessible. _

"_I told you, didn't I?" the Cyberman stated, distracting Rose from her thoughts. _

_She blinked. "Come again?"_

"_I told you that if you kept on traveling, you'd keep changing." The Cyberman stepped forward, its metal finger pointing at Rose, in almost an accusing manner. "Look at you! I warned you, I knew that traveling with the Doctor would destroy you in the end! Did you ever listen?"_

_It was then that Rose recognized the Cyberman. Her eyes widened as the terrifying, painful memory struck her: "Now I am Cyber form. Once I was Jacqueline Tyler."_

"_Mum?" she breathed, terrified. _

_If at all possible, the Cyberman's voice turned angry and disgusted. _

"_Look at what's become of me!" it shouted. "Look at what you've done!"_

"_What do you mean?" Rose backed into the wall, feeling sick. _

"_You picked an alien, time-traveling stranger over your own family!" it snarled. "You abandoned me in another universe, to be upgraded! Look at what I've become! I told you that the Doctor would destroy you, and you've dragged me down with you! You're no better than he!"_

"_Mum!" Rose cried, feeling the sting of guilt as the Cyberman advanced on her, its arm raised, fingers stretched out threateningly, poised to electrocute her. "Stop it! Please, just stop it!"_

_Then the Cyberman spoke its final, hurtful words, the final blow: "You deserve to remain like this, trapped for eternity!"_

_Rose gasped, feeling tears stinging her eyes. She opened her mouth, but no words came, no cry of protest, no apology, no plea for forgiveness. Her throat tightened, and she covered her mouth to stifle a strangled sob. _

_But how could this be? The rational side to Rose reared up in defense of the unexpected assault. The Cybermen were dead, and Jackie was safe… it was completely impossible. Jackie Tyler who had become a Cyberman was long dead, and had never known Rose, had never had children, was not, was never Rose Tyler's mother. This was wrong. _

_Rose looked up at the advancing Cyberman. "I deny your existence!" she cried. _

_The Cyberman promptly vanished, leaving Rose to slide to the floor, her face in her hands. That Cyberman was not real, her mother was safe, and would never had said those terrible things; but what agonies separation from her only daughter must have done to Jackie… the guilt burned Rose's conscience._

___._..


	4. Chapter 4: Dimensional Transcendentalism

Chapter 4

Dimensional Transcendentalism

The world is full of rules, which paradoxically are a necessity for freedom. Were it not for rules, the world would fall into chaos, and there is no freedom in chaos. While some rules are less important to keep order than others, one is absolutely essential when it comes to the dignity of men, and that is never to allow Captain Jack Harkness to command your troops.

However little known that the necessity of this guideline may be to those like Captain Erisa Magambo, upon first meeting Captain Jack, its importance is familiar enough to his own team, who only need experience with his mannerisms to understand this truth.

"Okay, listen up!"

A dozen soldiers, dressed in black uniforms with red caps, all stood to attention. Jack surveyed the group with a raised eyebrow, then his face split into a grin.

"Actually get to be a captain for once?" Martha said in low voice, smirking, before Jack could say anything. The latter turned around, an expression of mock hurt on his face.

"Hey, I'll have you know that before I met up with a certain…" Jack pointed upwards mysteriously, but Martha didn't even blink. "…I actually was a captain. Well, a captain, then a con man, then…"

Jack spread his arms out, indicating himself.

"Never mind your ego," Martha grunted. Jack shrugged, and turned back around.

"Okay, listen up!" he repeated, raising his voice again. He started to walk past the soldiers as they lined up. "My name is Captain Jack Harkness. Captain Magambo is temporarily placing you under my command. We've just received word that the fire has died down, so it is mostly safe to search for survivors on the floors that received the most damage, and to find the source of the explosion."

He paused in front of a large, burly soldier who stood a head taller than him. "What is your name?"

The soldier saluted him. "Chris Dynhart, sir."

Jack nodded at Dynhart appreciatively. Behind him, Martha rolled her eyes, knowing that Jack had refrained from wolf whistling or something else unbecoming of the rank he had just been granted. Instead, Jack asked, "How long have you been under Magambo's command?"

"Two months," was Dynhart's curt reply.

"So you're familiar with Torchwood Tower?"

"Somewhat."

Gwen appeared at Martha's side. "What's going on?"

Martha looked back at Gwen, her expression long-suffering. "Jack's having fun with the soldiers."

"You're aware, then, of all the Torchwood equipment stored in the labs?" When Dynhart nodded, Jack turned to the others. "When up in the tower, you are to report anything unusual you see, or anything you haven't seen before, but don't, I repeat, _don't_ touch anything."

"Yes, sir!" several voices said.

Jack grinned again. "I could do this all day."

Gwen sighed as Martha called out, "Enjoying yourself?"

Jack ignored her. He continued to pass the soldiers slowly. "If any of you find something you think might have caused the explosion, or anything you know wasn't there before, you are to report it to me or to Ianto."

Jack indicated Ianto, who looked as irked as Gwen and Martha felt. Then he turned to look at the soldier he was about to pass, and paused again, frowning as though he recognized him, but couldn't quite remember where. What was rare, was that Jack's narrow eyes indicated that his impression of this particular soldier wasn't a recommending one.

"You," he said, his voice suddenly sharp.

"Sir." The soldier, a dark-haired man with a small nose and plastic-framed glasses, saluted Jack, like Dynhart, but Jack didn't grin at him.

"What's your name?"

"Stones, sir. James Stones."

"Go by Jimmy, I suppose?"

Stones nodded, looking confused. To everyone's surprise, Jack did not give him the cheeky smile he had given Dynhart. On the contrary, his eyes flashed for a second with anger, and he looked Stones up and down, almost as though he were sizing him up. The soldier looked surprised and a little wary of Jack's scrutiny, and he looked away. Then Jack scowled, and looked away.

"Right!" he said loudly, as though nothing had happened. "According to intelligence, the explosion consumed floors nineteen through twenty-six. Whatever caused it will be somewhere in that area."

Now at the end of the line, closest to Martha, Jack turned to her abruptly, and discreetly gestured at Stones. "What is he doing here?" he hissed.

His quiet but caustic voice startled Martha. "He's under Magambo's command. I don't know."

"No," Jack whispered. "What is he doing at UNIT? When was he recruited?"

Martha shrugged, looking confused. "How should I know? I don't have access to their records, except their medical records. Why? Do you know him?"

"No," Jack said irritably, "and frankly, I don't really want to."

With that, Jack turned back to the soldiers, ignoring the object of his inexplicable ire. "Again, don't touch anything you find, but report back to me or Ianto."

As he continued describing their mission, Martha turned to Gwen and Ianto.

"What was all that about?" she asked, but Gwen looked as bewildered as Martha felt, and Ianto shrugged.

"There's a lot Jack doesn't tell us," Ianto said quietly, so that Jack wouldn't hear.

"Clearly," muttered Martha.

"You are to work in groups of three," Jack continued, "each one under the supervision of myself, Gwen, Ianto, or Dr. Jones. Remember, floors nineteen through twenty-six."

Jack turned around, and pointed at the two standing closest to him. "You two together with me, you two with Gwen, you two…" He moved back down the line, closer to where he had started, until the entire squad had been split into four distinct groups. He then stopped pacing, then turned to look at them. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get going!"

* * *

_Every fight, every effort, every struggle took a toll on her. This last encounter with ghosts of her past had shocked Rose so badly that she still knelt on the floor in a daze. Why now? Why had the memory of Jackie Tyler, both her mother and the parallel version, resurfaced in such a way as to strike at Rose's very conscience, at this exact moment?_

_She ran her fingers through her hair distractedly, still dwelling on the Cyber Jackie's cruel words, tired of the struggle, fatigued by the guilt and by desperation, and for a time, she just sat there, still stunned, for longer than she could really be aware, sinking into oblivion. _

_When she next was aware, she looked up and scrambled to her feet with a yelp. The library was gone; instead she was standing before an iron cage in a room with concrete walls, and inside the cage lay a gray wolf. This wolf's eyes were shut, almost peacefully, its thorax rising and lowering softly, but Rose noticed that the wolf did not look healthy at all; on the contrary, it was very thin, as though it had not eaten for days. The wolf quivered, as though it were cold and in pain, and fur had fallen out in places. But what truly alarmed Rose was what stood outside the cage: a giant black scorpion, as large as the wolf, staring directly at its captive. Its pincers were moving up and down in a slow, almost relaxing rhythm, and it seemed to be emitting a strange croon, as though it were lulling the wolf to sleep. _

_But Rose's surprised shout had roused the wolf. Its eyes opened, somewhat glazed, and it stood shakily, taking in its surroundings. The almost peaceful expression in its face had vanished. It looked alarmed at first as it looked at the iron bars. Then the wolf's eyes fell on the scorpion, which had stopped humming, and was now standing very still. _

_The wolf bared its teeth, absolutely incensed, and with a terrible snarl it launched itself at the bars of the cage, determined to get out and rip the scorpion apart. But the bars held it back, and the wolf snapped at the scorpion through the gaps in the bars, but unable to fit through itself. The scorpion drew back in alarm, before raising its pincers menacingly. Then its tail arched above its back, poised to strike. _

"_No!" Rose cried, but it was too late. The sting snapped forward, striking the wolf's shoulder. The wretched creature let out a sickening shriek and fell back, whimpering, nursing its wound. The scorpion slowly raised its tail again, ready to strike a second time should its victim attempt to escape again. _

_Horrified, Rose ran toward both animals, reaching for the scorpion's tail, and it turned to face her, tail striking forward. _

_She sat up with a start, and realized that she was on the floor of the library, back from the realm of the subconscious._

* * *

The team of soldiers Magambo had assembled for Jack was delayed again on their way into the tower; they were held up by a group of tired-looking firefighters in the lobby, all of whom were covered in ash and grime, and had faces as grim as the thunder and rain outside. They were led by a tall man with a bushy moustache standing by the reception desk, who walked up to Jack and held out his hand as the soldiers approached.

"Marcus Keele," he greeted. A quick glance at his badge told Jack that he was the fire chief. "I take it you're Captain Harkness."

Jack replied in the affirmative, and shook Keele's hand.

"Colonel Mace told me to meet you here. We're to help your team out upstairs; the damage on floors 19 through 23 is pretty heavy, and you need us to steer your soldiers clear from the danger zones."

"Good," Gwen said. "Some of us don't know first thing about fires."

"You say that Floor 19 was where the explosion took place?" Jack asked. When Keele nodded, Jack asked, "I don't suppose you found anything while you were up there?"

The firefighter snorted. "There's a lot of odd stuff in this tower. I saw things up there like nothing I've ever seen, and Mace warned us not to touch any of it. If the explosion could have been caused by one of those things, you're looking at the wrong area of expertise. For all I know, any of them could have set it off."

Jack sighed. "It's going to be a long day."

Keele reached into a sack on the desk and pulled out a stack of paper masks, which he started passing out to the soldiers. "These are for the burnt floors," he told them. "The windows were all blasted out, so the worst fumes are gone, but there's still the fiberglass particles from insulation."

He paused, then looked at them all sternly. "_Don't_ take the masks off while in floors 19 through 23, for _any reason_. If you must remove them, leave those floors. Enough people have been sent to the hospital already."

Martha frowned at Keele as she took her mask. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"It isn't," he said bluntly. He turned back to the soldiers. "We also need a group of you to search the floors above 25, which we haven't covered yet. We've received several phone calls from people who are trapped up there."

In the next few minutes, Jack showed Keele how the soldiers had all divided into groups of two, and in response, the latter likewise divided up the firefighters; at least two were to accompany each set of soldiers.

"Just send me into the danger zones," Jack piped up. "I'm a little more indestructible than most."

Everyone except Martha and the Torchwood team shot Jack looks of confusion (from the firefighters) or disgust (from the soldiers, who had received the wrong impression from his statement); Keele ignored him completely and shoved a mask into his hands.

* * *

On the nineteenth floor ten minutes later, Chris Dynhart wandered around a wrecked office, surveying the damage. The fire, now extinguished, had consumed the entire room: the walls, the carpet, and the ceiling had all burnt black; scorched plaster tiles had fallen out of the ceiling, exposing insulation and pipes, one of which had broken and was dripping water all over the floor beneath it. The shock of the explosion had knocked smaller objects across the room, such as wrecked computer equipment and knickknacks, some of which lay in puddles of melted plastic. Office chairs had been reduced to ash and foul smelling burnt plastic, and pieces of broken glass and plaster littered the floor. The only sound in the office, apart from muffled footsteps in the next room, was the soft murmur of the wind, bringing cold air through the shattered windows.

"Dynhart, where'd you go?"

Dynhart whirled around, startled by the sudden voice, as a second soldier named Anthony Threet entered the room, followed by a firefighter and Gwen.

"There you are" Threet said, his voice muffled slightly by his mask. "You're not supposed to wander off unaccompanied, you know."

"Don't do that, Tony!" Dynhart hissed. "No extra points for scaring your fellow soldiers out of their minds."

"Sorry." Threet glanced around the room. "Find anything?"

"You're looking at it," Dynhart muttered sarcastically. "Plenty of shrapnel."

Threet shrugged. "If I remember right," he said to Gwen, "there's a laboratory over this way."

He crossed the room and entered another doorway (the door had been blasted off its hinges), which led down a hallway. The firefighter ran close behind.

"Let me go in first," he said irritably.

"Sure thing, sergeant," Threet said cheerfully. "What was your name?"

"John Chapman," came his curt reply. "And you're supposed to be following me, not vice versa."

"Yeah, Threet, whatever happened to not wandering off unaccompanied?" Dynhart smirked, and followed Chapman into the hallway, Gwen close behind. At the other end, another door had been blasted open, and the three of them entered the room and shone their flashlights.

"Seems you were right about the lab," Gwen commented. She waved her flashlight around, scrutinizing the room. "And I think we've found the right location."

They were standing in a large room, also blackened by the flames, which was in even worse shape than the outside rooms; all of the ceiling tiles had fallen out, and some of the exposed electrical wires had frayed; several were emitting a stream of angry white sparks. Tables and chairs had overturned, everywhere they looked, glass phials and beakers had shattered, and they could see computer equipment and broken microscopes, which had been thrown across the room. All of the smashed equipment, surrounded a sinister-looking sphere, which lay on the floor, covered with sharp spines, , near a bent tripod, which perhaps had once held it up. The sphere, a bout a foot in diameter, had slit open and was smoking slightly.

"Watch out for the cables," Chapman warned as Dynhart approached the sphere.

"I remember this thing," he said, bending over it. It was filled with blackened metal circuits and sizzling wires. "The experts called it the Echidna from Hell. They must have brought it up from storage for analysis. Didn't know it could explode, though."

"Clearly no one did," Threet scratched his head thoughtfully, "or else the wouldn't have left it here."

Dynhart pulled out his radio. "Dynhart to Captain Harkness."

They waited a moment. Then another voice responded, "Captain Harkness does not have a radio, but he's listening."

Threet stifled a snigger, as Dynhart replied, "I think we've found it. We're on Floor 19."

* * *

Ten minutes later, Threet led Jack into the room, and Ianto and Martha, who had apparently rushed from their areas in response to Dynhart's message, closely followed him. Threet pointed at the device.

"Ah, the Devil's Sea Urchin," said Ianto. "Torchwood certainly wasn't aware that it was a bomb."

"It's not," Jack said, but he looked contemplative. "That's a Delminiran power cell; it's basically their starship equivalent for a car battery."

The soldiers stared at him.

"How did you know that?" asked Dynhart.

"I've seen them before," Jack said lightly, bending over it. "It's enormously potent, and also enormously touchy. If you hit one of these with a strong enough force, it could explode."

"What could have set it off?" asked Gwen.

"Now that's what's weird," Jack said, looking around the room for anything that could have struck the cell. "It would probably explode if you threw it in front of a lorry or out the window, but nothing in here could have hit it hard enough."

"What's with the spines?" asked Martha curiously.

"Anti-theft device," Jack replied, shrugging. "Anyway, yeah, this is what exploded, but now we should be worried about what exploded it. D'you see any lorries in here?"

Everyone in the room stared at him, and Gwen snorted.

"Okay, bad question," Jack said. "So sue me."

At that moment, their radios crackled again. "Wood to Mr. Jones."

Dynhart passed his radio to Ianto. "Jones here."

"Stones and I are on Floor 26. We've run into a problem."

* * *

"Oh. My. God," Martha whispered, gaping at the scene before them: there was no ceiling; extending beyond the room she stood in, it had caved in completely, and though there was no fire, the place had been completely wrecked. Plaster, wires, pipes, even some of the metal beams from the tower's interior structure had fallen out, as though there had been an earthquake, and above them, they could see a gaping hole, extending several floors above them; Martha counted to Floor 34. It was as if the focus of an earthquake had been moved to the center of the tower.

"We were sent to look at Floor 27 and discovered that the floor was gone," Jimmy Stones told them.

"And the ceiling," Keele added, stunned. Beside him, Gwen was scrutinizing the upstairs floors with squinted eyes.

"Stones nearly fell in it," said Dave Wood, a stocky black soldier who stood next to Stones. "Something fell through here, we think."

"Whatever happened up here set off the explosion downstairs," Ianto assessed, looking at Jack.

The latter rounded on Keele. "Why didn't you mention this before?"

"I told you, we were trying to clear up the fire!" the firefighter retorted. "I hadn't seen this until now! If there's anybody you should be shouting at, it's the people in the helicopters outside, 'cause they sure said nothing about this!"

"What _did_ that?" Gwen whispered. "What could spontaneously fall through _eight floors_ and set off an explosion _fifteen floors_ below?"

As one, they all looked either to Keele or to Jack for an explanation. Keele looked as shocked and bewildered as Martha, but Jack was staring off into space, frowning slightly.

"Jack?" asked Martha quietly.

"Can't you hear it?" he asked.

"Hear what?" asked Stones.

Ianto frowned too. "I hear something."

"Hear what?" Stones repeated.

"Jimmy Stones, I take great delight in saying this," said Jack irritably. "Shut up and listen!"

Stones fell silent, and then Martha heard it. A low, periodic hum, so soft that she might not have noticed had Jack not pointed it out. It sounded every few seconds, almost like a pulse, each hum lasting three or four seconds, ending on an even lower pitch. It was a sound that reminded Martha of the noises that spaceships made in sci-fi shows.

Without a word to anyone, Jack set off across the room toward the sound, kicking aside shrapnel as he went, and everyone followed him, still listening to the pulse. Nobody said a word as they wandered down the adjacent hallway, as the sound grew louder, and then Jack paused.

"In here," he said, indicating the end of the hallway, where the doorway had collapsed, leaving and opening. "Ianto, come with me."

The two men entered the room, and everyone waited outside. Then they heard Ianto Jones' exclamation: "What the hell is that?"

"Don't touch it!" came Jack's voice.

"I wasn't going to!"

Martha and the others followed them in, and were met with an astounding sight. In the middle of the room lay a towering polyhedron (the only accurate word anyone could think of), spherical and yet not, with a diameter of at least twelve feet, right below the hole in the ceiling. It was composed of what looked like translucent blue panels–Martha was certain that were the object opaque, it would have been black–which were placed in a three-dimensional pattern of hexagons and pentagons, like a giant soccer ball. The pulse it emitted was soft, but its resonation was still heart stopping.

"Where did this sphere come from?" asked Ianto, looking incredulous. "It wouldn't even fit in the floors up here."

"Well, strictly speaking, that's not a sphere." Jack walked around it as he spoke. "It's a truncated icosahedron."

"A what?" asked Keele, nonplussed.

"That's the geometric shape," Jack explained. "It looks like a soccer ball, see?"

"And it wasn't here before?" asked Gwen.

Jack, Ianto, and the soldiers all shook their heads. "Never seen it before," said Ianto, "and believe me, I'd notice something like this."

Jack hesitated, then stepped forward.

"Don't touch it!" cried Keele.

Jack shrugged. "Like I said downstairs, I'm a little more indestructible."

He then placed his hand on one of the pentagonal panels, and everyone waited with baited breath. But nothing happened.

"It's all right, I think," said Jack. "It feels like a liquid crystal display, a computer screen, you know?"

He placed his other hand on it, and they noticed that the surface beneath Jack's fingers rippled a little.

"Don't think that's what it is, though," he added, as he moved his hands around the polyhedron, feeling it. The moment he placed his hands on one of the hexagonal panels, however, it fell through, as though Jack had put his hand through some sort of membrane. He jumped back in surprise, and the surface of the polyhedron rippled back into shape.

"Definitely not liquid crystal."

The others watched curiously as Jack gingerly raised his hand to the panel again, and pressed against it slightly. Again, his hand sunk through; looking more closely, they could see, however, that it hadn't appeared on the inside of the semi-transparent object.

Jack pulled his hand out again, and felt the hexagonal panel above the first; the same thing happened. He then stepped back, and looked at the others.

"Nothing for it," he said. "Whatever this is, it's way beyond Planet Earth, and I'm going to find out all I can about it."

With that, Jack turned around and walked through the hexagonal panels, vanishing from sight.

"Jack!" Martha, Gwen, and Ianto shouted simultaneously, horrified at his recklessness, but their fears proved to be pointless. A moment later, Jack's head poked out from the panel; he was grinning maniacally.

"You have _got_ to see this!" he said, looking very excited. "Come on in!"

The others looked at each other. Then Martha hesitated, and followed Jack in. She gasped at her surroundings as Ianto and Gwen appeared beside her, followed by Stones, Wood, and Keele. "You have got to be kidding!"

Gwen gasped too. "It's impossible. This is completely, totally, physically impossible!"

"It's not impossible," Jack laughed. "It's dimensionally transcendental."

"It's bloody bigger on the inside!" Ianto stammered.

He was quite right. They weren't standing in what should have been the dark insides of the polyhedron, but inside a hexagonal room on a floor similar in color to the outside, likewise built with hexagonal tiles. The walls, made of the same liquid crystal-like substance as the outside (only they were opaque rather than translucent), were black, and lined with gold bands. Beyond Earth physics or not, it was incontrovertible. The 'truncated icosahedron' was indeed bigger on the inside.

Still laughing, Jack crossed the room to a doorway, which, like everything else inside the place, was hexagonal. "Corridor over here!" he called. "C'mon! Let's find out who built this!"

Martha caught up with him as he strolled down the corridor, with the same black walls, but the bands shone with white light, illuminating the place. It stretched for what looked like one to two hundred feet before them, flanked with similar hexagonal doorways.

"Whoever built this certainly liked hexagons," Jack commented as they walked.

"D'you think it's Time Lord?" asked Martha in a low voice. "It's bigger on the inside… are we in some sort of Tardis?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. The Tardis is the only thing I've seen which was bigger on the inside, but if the Time Lords figured out how to do it, maybe someone else did too."

He paused at a doorway and poked his head through, then stepped back. "Just a storage room by the looks of things," he said. "It's completely empty, though. That's odd. Still, it's the control room I want to see."

As Jack stood there, looking contemplative, Wood spoke up from the back.

"I'm in an alien spaceship," he said, an odd look on his face. "Spaceship. Alien. Spaceship. Bigger on the inside."

Jack grinned at him. "Welcome to the Universe, Dave Wood."

"Do you think it crash-landed?" asked Martha. "Only, how could it have crash-landed into Canary Wharf without leaving a hole on the outside?"

Jack couldn't answer. Instead he nodded down the corridor. "Let's go. Maybe the control room is down this way. Judging by the shape of that room, and perhaps the shape of the outside, I think that the inside is spherical or something similar, and if it's a sphere, I'll hazard a guess at the control room being at the center of the ship."

They pressed further, another twenty or thirty feet, until they passed another doorway, but this time leading down another hall; like the storage room Jack had just described, it eventually curved out of sight, indeed indicating that the inside was spherical. Jack only spared it a passing glance, but Martha's scream alerted him, and he whirled around to look in the direction she did, and leapt backward with a yelp.

They were looking right into the eye of a Dalek.

...


	5. Chapter 5: Defense Protocols

**A/N: There are a couple of revisions and additional scenes in this chapter which were not in the original version. **

Chapter 5:

Defense Protocols

Nobody moved. Neither did the Dalek. If he had acted on his first impulse, Jack would have had them all running in the opposite direction as fast as they could, but something held him back, and he realized that it was the Dalek's behavior, or lack thereof.

The Dalek did not react when they appeared. Its eyestalk was pointed directly at them, but it didn't seem to have noticed them. Then Jack noticed that its eye was not shining. The sides of the Dalek's gold armor was blackened, and even stranger was the fine white dust that covered its base and neckpiece, and also the floor surrounding it.

Jack hesitated, but still the Dalek did not move. Then he whispered, "If it even twitches, run. Don't stop, just get the hell out of here."

He carefully treaded right up to the Dalek, raised a fist, and tapped its dome three times. Nothing happened. Jack raised his hand and brushed some of the dust off the Dalek's head, then sniffed it. His brow furrowed, then he moved around the Dalek, watching it carefully. As soon as he was behind the creature, he relaxed.

"It's all right," he said to the others. "It's stone dead. Somebody did a thorough job."

Reaching forward, Jack turned the Dalek around, revealing a gaping hole burnt in its back. Its inside was coated with the white dust.

Martha stepped forward, and also touched the dust. "Is that…?"

"Dalek dust." Jack brushed more of the dust off. "Incinerator beam, if I were to hazard a guess. Hot enough to reduce the Dalek inside to ash, but not the armor."

He paused, then joined them again. "Let's move on, but keep your eyes open. I don't want to be surprised by a live one."

As they walked, Ianto spoke up. "I've seen those things. They were at Canary Wharf."

"Yep," said Jack in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'd love to know what one was doing on this ship, though. It's not a Dalek ship… at least, I've never seen a Dalek ship designed like this one, and as far as I know, they never figured out how to make things bigger on the inside."

Jack then paused, and added, "Somebody with a gun should walk ahead of us. Stones, you do it."

"Why me?" asked Stones, glancing back at the dead Dalek.

"One, you're carrying a gun," said Jack, becoming tetchy. "Two, because I told you to, and three, because if we do meet a Dalek or whatever killed it, better you in front than the rest of us."

Martha, Gwen, and Ianto all gaped at him in astonishment, as Stones slouched to the front.

"What is your problem?" he snapped as he went.

"Don't talk like that to your commanding officer," Jack snapped back.

"You are not my commanding officer," Stones retorted. "I can say what I like. What have I ever done to you?"

"Absolutely nothing," Jack growled, "but it is ironic that of all places for me to run into you, it had to be at Canary Wharf, where the one person we both once knew fought and died, someone who was as good as a sister to me. But you were no friend to her. Remember? Eight years ago? A girl not yet out of school, from the Powell Estate?"

There was a very tense silence, as Jack looked daggers at Stones, who realized, his face dawning with comprehension and shock, who Jack was talking about. A moment later, his stunned face turned scarlet with anger.

"That's none of your business," he hissed. "She was a bloody b"–

"If you finish that sentence, I'll drag you to Cardiff and feed you to my friend Janet," Jack snarled. "Now do what you're told! Go ahead of us!"

Stones scowled, but didn't reply. He obediently pulled out his gun and led the way down the hall. Jack followed, also seething, leaving a very uncomfortable silence in his wake. Gwen and Ianto looked even more confused, but Martha looked comprehending as she realized the implication behind the angry words, and she glanced away from the two men, looking awkward.

The group was completely silent as they walked down the hall after that. They didn't see any more Daleks, dead or alive, as they went, and a few minutes later they reached the end of the corridor, its hexagonal door also sealed with the same strange membrane-like substance. Stones paused and allowed Jack to march through first, then followed, and the others entered the room behind it.

All of them stood rooted to the spot, stunned at the magnificence of what appeared to be the control room, which was more like a hallway than a room. It was clearly circular and massive, surrounding a cylindrical wall, like a donut, and the walls, navy blue rather than the black they had originally seen, were covered with control panels. Apart from the seven intruders, the place was devoid of any people or Daleks, and the room was completely silent apart from the ship's pulse, which reverberated around the room, giving it a low, eerie echo.

"Right," said Jack, "we'll have a look around. Keele, Wood, you're with me and Martha. Ianto, Gwen, you're with Stones." He pointed to his left. "Go that way. We'll take the opposite. If you see anything operating the controls, don't raise a gun at it. We don't want to appear provocative. Just try to communicate with it, and if it's hostile, run and let me know on the radio. If it's a Dalek, really run. That's the best advice I can give."

He fell silent, and the others heard a small, high-pitched whine distantly, but growing steadily more audible. They then looked in the direction Jack intended to take his group, and a robot appeared around the bend of the room. It was egg-shaped, gold like the Daleks, and hovering a couple of feet above the ground, with a domed head sporting a band of red light. The robot had two thin arms, each of which featured a cylindrical protrusion, like a gun.

Jack raised his hands in the air, as if to convey that they meant no harm, but the robot simply drifted past him and continued down the room, ignoring him completely.

"Was that what operates this?" asked Gwen quietly.

"I don't know," Jack said, his voice hushed. "Whatever it is, it either doesn't see us, or it doesn't see us as a threat."

The robot disappeared from sight. Jack inhaled deeply.

"Martha, you and I will follow it," he said. "Gwen, Ianto, go the other way."

The others nodded and went down their respective routes. As Jack and Martha started off after the robot, Keele and Wood close behind them, Martha asked, "Do you think it's Time Lord?"

"No idea," Jack said. "Nothing I've seen here is anything like the Tardis, except that this ship is bigger on the inside. Also, this place is enormous."

"The Tardis was enormous," Martha pointed out.

"But the console room wasn't this big." Jack nodded at the control panels on the round wall. "I think that's the core of this ship. It seems that this place needs a lot of people and a lot of power to work, whatever it does. I'm not sure if it's a spaceship or a time ship, or whatever, but all the same…"

"And you said it certainly isn't a Dalek ship?"

Jack shook his head. "Do these controls look like they're designed for Dalek use?"

Martha surveyed the control panel nearest her, which contained a lever, a few switches, some dials, and a few oddly-shaped icons… certainly controls beyond Martha's knowledge, but she knew enough to know that whatever operated the ship needed fingers, certainly incompatible with the Daleks' plunger arms. Smiling slightly, Martha shook her head.

"It's not the right design," Jack continued. "The architecture's wrong, the outer design is wrong, the ship's ambience is wrong, and the dimensional transcendentalism is wrong. This is no Dalek ship. If you ask me, it belongs more to that robot we just saw than anything else."

"Well, Time Lord is the only other thing I can think of," said Martha. "I dunno. Maybe this ship was left over from the Time War. It would explain why there's a dead Dalek inside it."

At that moment, Gwen's voice sounded on Martha's radio. "We've found another two dead Daleks down this way. I thought I'd let you know."

Martha answered urgently, "Are you sure they're dead?"

"Are you kidding? They're in even worse condition than the first one."

Martha breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Gwen. Carry on." Turning back to Jack, she said, "You're right. Somebody's done a thorough job with these Daleks."

* * *

_There was an intruder. Rose opened her eyes, though she was sure she would fall asleep again any minute. Perhaps she had been more successful than she had thought. Somebody had gotten in. Somebody had heard her call. And so she squinted into the darkness, trying to make out what she could from one of these opposing realities. _

_Hexagons… they were everywhere, a significant symbol of Taledrev, always part of Helial architecture. Transcendentally Existential Vessels were a masterpiece of Taledrevan technology, and the full secrets of their operation remained known only to their creators. Even when connected to Eve, Rose only understood a few of those secrets, but she knew enough to perceive that it was far more sophisticated than the crude imitation that the Daleks had put together from stolen technology. _

_The truncated icosahedron was their most common design because the majority of the polyhedron's sides were hexagons, and when two hexagonal panels lined up vertically from a gravitational center, it opened up a doorway. The existence of such a function attested to the inventors' ingenuity, and therefore it was very surprising to Rose that somebody had found a way in. _

_Her eyes still shut, Rose concentrated on that world of light and black walls she sometimes caught flashes of in the corner of her eye, and sitting up so she wouldn't fall asleep, she tried to concentrate on what the security probe had seen. There was a thickset, dark-skinned man in military uniform, and a tall, thinner man wearing what memory told her was the outfit of a firefighter. In front of these two human intruders, she then saw another woman, a black woman with a badge that displayed a red cross, a doctor. Then this doctor's friend also came into view, and Rose's friend shot open in surprise. _

_She then shot them again, and looked harder, confirming what her senses were telling her. She then felt something, an emotion she had not felt for a very long time… and that emotion was hope, because he was somebody she recognized, somebody she trusted, somebody she thought was long dead._

* * *

The dead Daleks were everywhere. Gwen stared all around her as she wandered down the enormous corridor, a few feet ahead of Ianto and Stones, growing more amazed the more she looked. From what the other Torchwood employees had told her, hundreds of Cybermen and Torchwood soldiers couldn't even bring down four.

So what could have so easily butchered what appeared to be perhaps hundreds of Daleks around the ship? And where were the people who defeated them? Were they the robots, one of which they had just encountered? Were they the ones who controlled this ship?

Looking around behind her, Gwen saw Jimmy Stones staring around the room. His face had lost its anger from his earlier argument with Jack, though behind his awe at what he saw around him, he still looked sullen. Gwen didn't blame him. In all her time working with Torchwood, she had seen a lot of strange things, beyond the imagination of the average inhabitant of Earth. She had seen people brought back to life, even if only for a few minutes. She had seen aliens, some wandering around sewers, some appearing from the Cardiff Rift. She remembered the Cybermen and their ways, and had heard of the Daleks and _their_ ways.

But this far surpassed anything Gwen had ever seen before.

Behind her, as he looked around, Ianto reflected on his previous career. This far surpassed anything he had ever seen before. For the first time, he truly realized the folly of Yvonne Hartman and Torchwood One, as he looked around the realm of some civilization which clearly was far greater and far superior to Earth. It made him feel very small and insignificant, and that terrified him.

"What were these things, anyway?" asked Stones, interrupting the Torchwood members' thoughts. He was scrutinizing a Dalek that had been blown in half, its remains just a few feet from them.

"Not sure, really," Ianto said. "Some sort of alien death machine, although judging from what Jack's said, they're some sort of cybernetic creature. I've seen them before. They were at the Battle of Canary Wharf. I used to work at Torchwood Tower, you see, and I was very lucky to survive. What about you? They spread out across London, you know. Don't you remember?"

Stones shook his head. "I was just about to join UNIT then, but I had no training. I'd hidden that day while the Cybermen patrolled the estate."

Ianto shrugged. "Better than where I was. Believe me, that would have been far better than I was."

He fell silent, and the others said nothing. Stones merely shrugged, but Gwen sighed as she understood what and who Ianto referred to. As Ianto stared off into space and Stones bent over the Dalek remains, Gwen looked up in time to catch a glimpse of a movement, like somebody's shadow, behind a cluster of wrecked Daleks about ten feet away. Glancing at the others, she stepped forward slowly and moved around the metal creatures. Then her eyes fell upon not a robot, as she thought initially, but upon something totally unexpected.

"Ianto!" she hissed in his direction, her eyes not leaving the object of her scrutiny.

Hearing her alert call, Ianto snapped out of his thoughts and Stones stood up, and they glanced at each other. Then Stones pulled out his gun again, but Ianto put his hand on his arm. "Jack said no guns. We don't want to appear threatening."

Stones didn't look impressed. "What if it's one of those Dalek things?"

"It's not," Ianto said. "Gwen would be dead already if it was."

Stones scowled, and put his gun away. They then cautiously approached the place where Gwen stood by the group of Dalek shells, looking in the direction where she stared. Then Stones froze, and Ianto glanced at him, before following his gaze, and his mouth fell open in amazement.

There was a human being by one of the control panels, a woman dressed completely in black, bent over the controls with a hand resting on one of the icons. She stood a little more than five feet high, and she had shoulder-length blonde hair which hid her face, but what little skin they could see was very pale, almost chalk-white, which made her hair look almost brown in color.

She either didn't notice them or she completely ignored them, but a voluntary twitch from Ianto caused her to pause, and slowly look up. Gwen had to stifle a gasp when she saw her face: the woman had a cybernetic implant attached to her left temple, which extended above her eyebrow and on her cheek, and appeared to be connected to another implant clasped around her neck like a collar. Wires and tubes extended from the implant, some attached to her scalp, others connected to similar implants. Gwen could see that one ran down underneath her collar and onto her chest. Another group of wires rand own the woman's left arm to a mechanical hand, which rested on another icon on the control panel.

But what really alarmed Gwen was the cold, steely look in the woman's eyes, and the lack of expression or emotion on her face. It was a look that reminded Gwen of Lisa the Cyberwoman.

The cyborg stared at Gwen for a long time, before saying to herself, "Memory indicates the identity of a dead Earth sentient. Presence is illogical."

The woman's voice was monotonous and half mechanical, as she clearly was; it sent shivers up Gwen's spine.

The woman then looked to Ianto, but did not spent nearly as much time scrutinizing him, before turning to look at Stones, and Gwen noticed for the first time his reaction to the woman's appearance. To her surprise, his face had turned very white, and his eyes were wide with disbelief. He looked as though he was seeing a ghost.

Then the woman, or cyborg, or whatever she was, spoke again. This time her voice was louder. "Identification: James Stones, Human male. Status: Enemy. Activate defense systems."

Stones backed away in alarm, and Gwen and Ianto looked up in time to see one of the robots suddenly emerge from the liquid crystal-like walls, and raise its right arm, aiming the device on its wrist at Stones.

Then there was a bright, white hot flash, and a sizzling sound, before the smell of burning flesh met Gwen's nostrils. She blinked, and stared with Ianto in shock at the pile of dust that used to be Jimmy Stones.

* * *

Suddenly there was a low rumble, like thunder, echoing throughout the halls and rooms of the ship, and before anyone could react, the floor shook. Jack suddenly was thrown forward against the controls, then backwards, sprawled on the floor, while Martha was flung painfully across a toppled Dalek shell.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Martha shouted, standing up shakily. Her feet were starting to feel numb from the vibrations. As she spoke, the resonance of the ship changed to a faster pulse with a higher pitch. Nearby, Keele and Wood also clambered to their feet.

Jack got up and ran to the controls. "Sounds like something's activated the ship's protocols."

"That's not good, is it?" Martha said, joining him by the controls.

"It had better not mean that we'll be flung out into space," Jack said. "Because the science in this ship is way beyond me."

At that moment, Gwen and Ianto ran from the area they had been sent to explore, both looking shell-shocked. Their clothes were covered in white dust, and they both panted as though they had run a mile.

"What happened to you?" demanded Jack.

"Shaking… we know what set it off," Ianto gasped, wiping sweat and dust from his forehead. He seemed to behaving trouble standing.

"There's something living here," Gwen added. "At least, I think it's alive."

Martha frowned. "Where's Stones? He was with you, wasn't he?"

Ianto shook his head. "He's dead. One of the robots we saw earlier incinerated him, like the Daleks. That thing controlling the ship, it proclaimed him an enemy."

"Oh my God," breathed Martha.

"What was it?" Jack demanded, his expression alert. "Did you see it?"

"It was… I don't know!" Ianto cried, uncharacteristically panicked. The ship's pulse increased in volume, but the vibrations slowed. Then a clangor sounded throughout the ship, like an alarm. Jack glanced at the controls, before turning to the others.

"I think we've stayed too long," he said. "I don't know what's happening, but we're getting out of here now."

* * *

_She was back in the room with the wolf and the scorpion. The wolf was still in the cage, whimpering from its tormenter's sting, but something seemed to rouse it again, and it stood, snarling at something that stood behind Rose, and she turned around, and saw a man standing there, someone she had hoped in her distant past never to see again. _

_A new and yet old emotion erupted within Rose, an emotion she had not truly felt since before she fell into this state… and that emotion was rage. Rage at the sight of him, rage at the sudden reappearance of that two-timing liar in her life. Earlier, she had felt hope at the sight of someone she trusted. Now, she suddenly felt fury. Prior to her reawakening, Rose hadn't really felt any need to control her emotions, because there had been nothing to cause a rise in emotions. Therefore she was unable to completely master her thoughts, because of the uncontrollable desire to react, to get back at him for what he did to her in her early years. The wolf snarled and lunged at the bars of the cage toward him, but the scorpion turned and its sting snapped forward, striking the intruder in the heart, and Jimmy Stones screamed in agony and before Rose's eyes, burned up into nothing. _

_Meanwhile, the wolf continued barking wildly, but seeing the scorpion rise up and strike again (no matter who it struck at), the wolf made a second attempt to get out, clawing at the bars of the cage and at the scorpion. But the captor seemed just as determined to keep the wolf in the cage, and it struck a second time. _

_Rose flinched at the wolf's howls. She tried to block her ears, but this did nothing to muffle the sound of the animal's agony. Just as nothing calmed her terror, nothing dulled her pain. Every scream the wolf emitted echoed in Rose's soul, because she knew its pain and its despair. _

_She sat up in her bed in her mother's flat, as her alarm went off. The clock, as usual, showed the time to be 7:30. Realizing that the wolf and scorpion and Jimmy Stones all were a dream, Rose hit the snooze button; but the alarm continued. _

_Frowning, Rose struck it again, but again nothing happened. Picking up the alarm clock, she turned the alarm off, but to her amazement, it kept beeping. She also thought it was getting louder. Reaching to the wall, Rose unplugged the clock. To her great shock, it kept going, refusing to turn off. _

_She slammed the snooze button again, but to no avail. Hitting it again and again, Rose's frustration increased along with the alarm's volume. Losing patience, Rose flung it against the wall, shrieking "Stop it!" to the alarm, but nothing happened. The sound now was piercing, hurting her ears. _

_Rose leapt out of bed and leapt on the offending alarm clock, breaking the digital screen, but the alarm kept going, She picked it up and flung it against the wall again, but still, it refused to stop. She looked up, and saw a hammer on the floor nearby, which she grabbed and smashed on the alarm clock, hitting it until it broke to pieces, but still it kept going, the sound now boring into her ears like a drill._

_And finally Rose broke down and knelt on the floor, clutching her ears, screaming in pain and terror. _

"_This isn't real!" she cried, pounding her head with her fists. "This isn't real!"_

_Then she woke up, and she was back in the Library, but it was no longer silent. This time she could hear the ship's alarm sounding all around her, and realized that what her dream interpreted as an alarm clock was actually the sound of the ship's defense protocols, and she realized what had happened, and which of the three realities she experienced was real: one the real world, one a hallucination, and one a dream world, and the real world was by far the most alien to her. _

_She already knew that Jack and his friends were abandoning the ship, and they were wise to do so. She had failed. Unless someone more capable of freeing her appeared, she would once again sink into oblivion, and this time she would stand no chance of escape. The scorpion was winning; the wolf couldn't get out without help._

* * *

Captain Magambo and Colonel Mace were waiting for Jack and his party outside of the ship, and as they exited, Jack glanced back at the polyhedron to see what looked like a faint accretion disc of electrical blue light flowing into the pentagonal panels, seemingly from everywhere; occasionally bolts of static electricity flashed, shocking people in the vicinity, but he could see and feel that the bolts were not of high enough voltage to harm anyone. There also was a faint glow growing inside the translucent polyhedron.

"What's going on?" he demanded as he looked at the officers.

Unfazed, Colonel Mace said to him, "As someone who clearly has been inside this thing I hoped you would tell me."

Jack glared at him, but Magambo stepped in.

"Three and a half minutes ago that thing started absorbing electricity," she said. "Anything electrical, cars, mobile phones, cables, they're all losing power. It's already drained the whole of Canary Wharf."

"What about the city?" asked Martha, astonished.

Magambo nodded. "You can see it from here. "Anything electrical is out."

"We're cut off from any communication," added Mace. "Captain Harkness, what's happening in there?"

"I don't know," Jack admitted. "The technology is far beyond my abilities, but you might want to ask Gwen and Ianto. They saw it happen."

"What sort of technology was it?" Mace pressed urgently.

Jack hesitated. "We think it might be Gallifreyan."

As he spoke, there was a roar and the floor started shaking. Pieces of shrapnel fell from the hole in the ceiling, and everyone looked up in time to see a small whirlpool of light form just above the ship, funneling down into the top of the polyhedron. As the rim of the whirlpool gently brushed against the destroyed floor above, they saw material get pulled from the building and vanish into the funnel.

"What is that?" asked Gwen.

"I don't like the look of it," said Jack. "I've seen phenomena like that before, and if I'm right, it's either opening up a rift in time and space, or a black hole."

Speechless, everyone turned to stare at Jack in horror as he calmly opened his Vortex Manipulator, only to see that it had lost power too.

"Can't scan it," he groaned. "Can't interfere with it. And now I can't contact anyone who'd be able to help either."

"How do we stop it?" asked Magambo.

"I don't think we can." Jack's voice was dull as he shut the wristband. "Not even the Daleks stood a chance against whoever built this."

As he spoke, Martha felt a vibration in her pocket, and froze. Turning to Magambo, she said, "I thought you said that mobile phones weren't working."

Magambo nodded. "They're not."

Bewildered, Martha pulled her phone from her pocket. The caller ID told her that Tom was calling from South Africa, but that was beside the point. "Then why is my phone ringing?"

There was a quiet pause, except for the rushing of the accretion disc above them.

"Martha, is that the phone the Doctor upgraded?" Jack asked quietly.

She nodded. Jack grinned. "I think he's just given the only means by which we can contact anyone, and I think I know just the man."

Martha's eyes widened, and she promptly started dialing a number. "Thank you, Doctor!"

* * *

**A/N:**

**The alarm clock dream Rose has in this chapter is based on a dream I actually had. Twice, in fact. It was because my alarm went off, but I didn't wake up. And really, it was exactly as I described it here. It was probably the most painful dream I've ever had. My ears still hurt at the thought of it.**


	6. Chapter 6: Eternal Void

**There are a couple of additional scenes in this chapter.**

Chapter 6:

Eternal Void

It was silent when Donna stirred under her blankets, and yawning widely, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. The only sound was the Tardis's usual pulsating hum, lacking the usual sound of the preoccupied Doctor that came from the console room when she woke up. Donna slid out of bed and looked at the alarm clock she had set up on her bedside table (her room had a clock on the wall, but it had five hands and showed the Gallifreyan script instead of English): by Donna's timeline, it was about five o' clock in the morning, or whatever the Tardis did besides mornings.

The first new noise Donna heard was the Doctor's footsteps down the hall, and deciding that despite the early hour it was time for her to get up too, she crossed the room to the dresser and started sorting through her clothes.

It was odd, she thought as she pulled on a blue shirt, that every day on the Tardis started like any normal day on Earth: get up, get dressed, and have your breakfast. After that, however, the day grew progressively more and more bizarre, from the moment the Doctor would bound from the kitchen to the control room, and then spend half an hour deciding where to go before setting the coordinates.

Today, however, felt different.

As she finished getting dressed, she thought she heard voices in the control room, and she curiously opened her door and quietly walked outside and down the corridor. When she reached the control room, however, she only saw the Doctor standing by the console, looking nonplussed, but Donna could have sworn she heard a second voice say, just before she entered, "Prepare yourself, Doctor. It begins now."

The Doctor hadn't noticed her, but before Donna could make herself known, she heard a ring tone. The Doctor turned around and picked up Martha's mobile phone.

"That you, Martha?"

There was a pause, then the Doctor asked, "Why? What's the matter?"

The next pause as Martha spoke was very long. The odd feeling Donna had about the day ahead grew stronger; Martha never called unless something was happening and she needed help, but Donna also felt thrilled at the opportunity to visit their friend.

After a few minutes of complete silence, Donna saw the Doctor nod, then suddenly roll his eyes.

"What the hell have you and Harkness done now?" he demanded, surprising Donna. Evidently Martha was less surprised, because Donna heard her loud, exasperated retort from across the room. Then the Doctor sighed, and said, "All right, I'll follow your signal. Be there in a moment."

He snapped the phone shut, and Donna cleared her throat. The Doctor jumped and looked up to see her.

"Wow, you're on edge this morning," Donna felt pleased with herself; anyone who could get the Doctor to jump out of his skin deserved a metal.

The Doctor recovered his composure, looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, Donna. I'm not usually that jumpy."

"Bad night?"

He shrugged. "Bad night, and very unusual morning. Not a good combination."

Donna smirked. "So what's Martha up to?"

"Something's happening on Earth, apparently." The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. "_Again_. She's phoned for help."

"Good… I mean, not good," Donna corrected herself, "but it'll be good to see her."

The Doctor placed the phone on the console, then stretched a device wired to the screen forward and attached it to the phone. Donna took a seat by the console, and looked up at the Doctor. "Who's Harkness?" she asked curiously.

The Time Lord grunted. "I'm going to have to introduce you to Casanova," he groaned. At Donna's raised eyebrow, he finally relented. "Jack Harkness, he's a friend of mine. He used to travel with me, before I met Martha."

He fiddled with some controls, and then pulled a switch. "Ah ha!" he cried. "Locked onto Martha's location." The Doctor then looked sideways at Donna as the rotor started moving up and down, and the engines started whining. "I should warn you, Jack's a bit… well, let's just say he considers the day wasted if he hasn't hit on six people before lunchtime."

"Oh, just leave him to me," said Donna cheerfully. "I'll set him right."

The Doctor hid his face in his hands. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

"Oi!"

* * *

_The whimpering had returned, and she glanced up to see the wolf and the scorpion in the concrete room before her for perhaps the fourth or fifth time, over and over again, and each time the wolf's cries grew weaker. Each time the scorpion stung it, the wolf shrunk further into its cage, giving into its agony, and each time Rose witnessed its surrender, the more frightened she became. She couldn't understand why she kept dreaming of these two creatures, but she felt that it was quite clear what the vision signified._

_This time, the wolf had not risen to escape again. This time it simply lay in its cage, and the scorpion's sting still arched above its back, poised to strike again should the wolf make any further attempt to escape; those attempts had greatly weakened it, so that it looked even less healthy than before. The wolf had given up, had lost all hope, just as Rose had lost all hope. The scorpion was victorious; Eve had won._

* * *

No sooner had Martha hung up when the familiar whine of the Tardis engines reached her ears, and she looked to her right just in time to see the familiar blue police box come into view in a corner opposite the polyhedron, which was growing still brighter. The gyrating light above them had also grown brighter, and they could feel a gentle rush of air spiraling around them, carrying dust with it, like a dust devil.

The Tardis doors opened and the Doctor sprinted out, pulling on his brown trench coat; Donna followed close behind. As Martha and Jack ran to greet them, the Doctor looked from the strange vessel and the accretion of electrical energy to the flaring light above them. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out. For once, the Doctor looked completely speechless.

"I think you've got the gist of what's going on," Jack said sarcastically.

The Doctor glared at him. "What have you done here?"

"It wasn't me!" Jack said defensively. "And I'm still not sure what started it. It just showed up here and blew half the place apart."

"And where is here?" asked Donna.

Jack and Martha looked at each other uneasily. Then the former turned back to the Doctor. "Welcome back to Canary Wharf."

The Doctor blanched, and a shadow passed over his face. He then shook his head, and turned back to the vessel, pulling his sonic screwdriver from a pocket. "It's draining all of Earth's energy, electrical, nuclear, geothermal, and harnessing that power ."

He pointed the screwdriver at the light and started scanning it.

"Your sonic screwdriver's still working," Jack said, scowling. "It and Martha's phone. Everything else: zip. Even my Vortex Manipulator's down."

"I told you that thing was a piece of junk." The Doctor lowered the screwdriver. "It's using the power to unravel the threads of space and time around it, starting up there." He pointed at the funnel of light above them. "If I didn't know better…"

"So it _is_ forming a black hole," Jack groaned.

"A black hole?" gasped Donna. "But don't they, like, suck everybody in or something?"

"It's not just forming a black hole," the Doctor said, amazed. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that the icosahedron _is_ the black hole, or it will be. Soon it will be a fully formed artificial singularity. And yes, Donna, once its density has increased enough, and the breach is open, yes, it will pull everything and everyone inside, planet included."

"How long have we got?" asked Donna.

"I don't know. A couple of hours, perhaps." He turned back to Jack and Martha. "And that thing just appeared here? At Torchwood Tower, of all places?"

Martha nodded. "It blew half the place up."

The Doctor's eyes shut as fury and horror crossed his face again. He swayed a little, as though he was about to pass out, and Jack, Martha, and Donna all simultaneously moved to catch him, but he didn't fall. Instead he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and recovering, he bound up to the polyhedron. "Right!" he said loudly. "Jack, how close a look did you get at this thing?"

"We got inside it," Jack said smugly.

The Doctor paused. "_You_ got inside it?" he repeated incredulously. "How did you get inside it? This technology is way beyond even you, Jack. _I'd_ have a hard time getting inside it."

"D'you know what it is?" asked Martha. "Apart from a singularity?"

"Oh yeah." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "I know what it is. So how did you get in?"

"Complete accident," Jack said, shrugging. "Doc, have you met Gwen and Ianto?"

He nodded at his fellow team members, who had been standing to the side throughout this exchange; Magambo had escorted Wood and Keele away from the scene for questioning while Martha was on the phone, and Jack had persuaded Colonel Mace to go with them.

Ianto stepped forward, his hand outstretched. "Ianto Jones," he said, shaking the Doctor's hand. "Are you the Doctor in Torchwood's history?"

The Doctor grinned. "Yep, that's me. Werewolf, Queen Victoria, and all." Turning to Gwen, his eyes widened.

"Erm, hello," Gwen said, frowning.

"Blimey," the Doctor said, smiling. "Are you from an old Cardiff family?"

Gwen frowned, and shrugged. "I dunno. Never kept track of my family history. Why?"

The Doctor shook his head, still grinning. "Nothing. You just look a lot like someone I once knew."

"So, you want to see the inside?" asked Jack. "Getting in is easy enough. C'mon."

Jack and Ianto then walked past the Doctor and stepped through the hexagonal sides, Gwen close behind them. The Doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise as Martha followed the Torchwood team through; the former, however, stayed outside and placed his hands over one of the pentagonal sides, but not touching it.

"Oh, you are beautiful!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" asked Donna.

Instead of answering, the Doctor stepped in front of the hexagon and placed his hand through it, before walking through himself. Donna followed, and gasped as she took in the front room.

"It's like the Tardis!"

Jack laughed. "Partly why we needed you, Doc."

"You would not believe how much this is a relief to me," the Doctor sighed, as he looked around. "This ship is bigger on the inside, and that means it can't be the same as last time."

"What d'you mean, the same as last time?" asked Donna.

The Doctor looked at her. "I've seen one of these before, but this is much more sophisticated." Turning back to Jack and Martha, he continued, "We're in another Void Ship."

* * *

_It was __him__._

_Rose had very nearly given in to her despair when Jack had left the Void Ship, but when she woke up and began concentrating on Eve's reality again, he had returned, and he brought the one person Rose believed could free her._

_She had felt Eve become alert as it detected five humanoids enter the ship, three of which had been there before; but there was an incongruity in their biological signatures. Rose's interest had perked up at this, and then she saw a tall, thin man with brown hair and side burns, and dark eyes that were so familiar with her, the same eyes that even now had never failed to fill her with comfort and trust._

_He now was speaking to Jack as he walked. As Rose's curiosity rose, Eve began to listen to their conversation. It was at that moment that the Doctor saw the remains of one of the Dalek invaders, and paused to examine it._

"_Blimey," he said quietly. "You weren't kidding, were you?"_

_Jack peered inside the Dalek's shell. "You have yet to see the security robots that destroyed it, and all the other Daleks on this ship. Until we encountered them, I was confused about their presence. I've been to the control room already, and the controls aren't designed for Dalek use."_

_The Doctor nodded. "You are right, although it should have been clear from the moment you stepped in this ship that it's not a Dalek ship. The Daleks lacked the imagination to make things bigger on the inside. Anyway, this one is a completely different design from the Dalek Void Ship. For starters, theirs was a sphere, but this one is a truncated icosahedron."_

"_Sorry, what are Daleks?" the redhead asked. Rose looked at her more closely and was shocked to recognize the same woman she had seen while trying to get a message through to her universe, the one who had hidden her mother's keys in a dust bin._

"_What was your name?" asked Jack, suddenly turning his attention to Donna._

"_Donna Noble," the redhead answered, shaking Jack's hand._

"_Nice to meet you, Donna Noble," Jack said promptly._

_Rose smiled slightly as the Doctor and the black woman exclaimed in unison, "Not now, Jack!"_

_Donna raised an eyebrow. "You're Jack. I already know that. So, Daleks?"_

"_Think of the Nazis," Jack told her. "Nasty guys, I never want to meet them again…. Think of them, and now think of their numbers, their technology, their master race ideology, their evil, and their acts of genocide, multiplied by a billion… and you get the Daleks."_

_Donna looked sick, but before she could say anything, the Doctor drew Jack's attention back to the problem at hand, then both turned to the other man who had been with Jack the first time. Rose tuned out; however much she loved to hear the Doctor's voice, she had more important things to do, because Eve was still in defense mode. Anyone formerly acquainted with her was in deadly danger here, and only Rose could protect them._

* * *

"What was he doing here?" the Doctor demanded, looking outraged.

"Exactly what I'd asked Martha," Jack told him.

"It doesn't matter why he was here," Gwen cut across, looking exasperated. "He's dead. You won't have to put up with him."

This surprised the Doctor. "He's dead? How did that happen?"

"I don't know. We were in the control room, or what Jack thinks was the control room."

"It's enormous," Jack interrupted, "and it's a donut shape. You'll see.'

"It being a donut shape is why Jack didn't see what happened," Gwen said. "Ianto and I were down around the other side of the room with Stones, and we saw somebody there, some sort of… a cyborg, I guess."

"She said something funny when she saw Gwen," Ianto added. "Something about her being a dead Earth sentient, and her presence being illogical."

"She ignored Ianto completely," Gwen continued. "But the second she saw Stones, she said something about defense systems. Then one of the robots appeared and incinerated him."

"There's your answer, Jack," the Doctor said. "The defense protocols activated, and this vessel is designed to exist outside of time and space. As part of the protocols it began the process of moving into singularity mode so it could open a breach in space-time, using whatever power it could get. But why would Jimmy Stones activate the defense protocols?"

Gwen shrugged. "The cyborg declared him an enemy. I can't think why, though."

The Doctor frowned, and looked at the dead Dalek with a raised eyebrow, perplexed. "That's strange. What connection would somebody like him have with a Void Ship? Was he ever at Canary Wharf under Torchwood?"

Martha shook her head. "Not that I know of, but at some point, UNIT recruited him into their troops, and they've been in control of Canary Wharf ever since the battle."

The Doctor shook his head. "The first Void Ship was gone by then. Let's think… Void Ship, Void Ship… Void… oh."

The Doctor's face lit up for a split second, but his conclusive expression faded the moment it appeared.

"No," he whispered incredulously. "It can't be… it's completely impossible."

* * *

"_Here is no water but only rock. Rock and no water and the sandy road."_

_Rose paused, and glanced up at the sound, but there was no one about. No Cyberman hallucinations, no wolf and scorpion, only the bookshelves and the domed ceiling. Rose stood and glanced around the room more closely, but again there was no one. She was as alone as she ever was, but she could have sworn that she heard a voice speaking those words._

_She didn't recognize the voice that had spoken, nor did she recognize the strange words, but they chilled her, because they had such relevance to her own situation. Just as there was no water but only rock, in this state she had no life, only existence._

_But the fact was, she had heard something speak, and that was what confused her. There had always been the second presence, but until now, it had only ever repeated numbers._

* * *

"Did your people make this ship?" asked Martha.

They were now in the control room. The Doctor had bounded to the controls the moment they entered, and ran his hands and sonic screwdriver over them, making awe-struck exclamations as he did, and causing his companions to smile at each other in amusement; even in a crisis, the Doctor couldn't resist examining technology. However, they also recognized that they had less than two hours before the black hole opened completely, so Martha brought the Doctor's attention back to the problem at hand by asking the question.

The Doctor shook his head in response. "Wrong architecture, wrong technology, definitely the wrong scientific discipline. To the Time Lords, Void travel was just a theory."

"But it's bigger on the inside!" Donna pointed out. "That's definitely Time Lord, you said so!"

"I said that the Time Lords were the _first_ to make things dimensionally transcendental." The Doctor smirked. "I never said they were the _only_ ones."

He paused, and stood up, squinting at the controls. "To my knowledge, there are only a few civilizations in this sector of the universe that had the necessary technology to build a Void ship. Void travel, that would be related to travel between parallel universes, so whoever invented this was more than capable of crossing realities."

"It has a defense system that is capable of fighting Daleks," Jack added.

The Doctor nodded. "Good point. What else? Liquid energy portals, the formation of which is based on the angle between the vessel and a gravitational center… Basic architecture: clearly the hexagon was an important shape to this culture."

Then he paused, and an odd look crossed his face, one of sudden realization, shock, and then finally disquiet. The Doctor drew his hand from the control panel hastily and stepped back, as though he had been burned.

"What's the matter?" asked Donna.

"Taledrev," he breathed.

"Come again?"

"There's only one civilization that matches this technology." The Doctor looked at Jack. "The Imperium of Taledrev."

Jack shook his head. "The what?"

The Doctor looked surprised. "You've heard of Time Lords in the 51st century, and you definitely know about the Daleks, but you haven't heard of the Taledrevan Empire?"

Jack shrugged.

"Blimey…" The Doctor scratched his neck. "Well, put it this way: if the Daleks are like the Third Reich times a million, then the Taledrevans are the British Empire times a million. Taledrev was the name of their star, which is located in the elliptical galaxy MCG 13-7-2. They used a sort of 'divide and conquer' diplomacy; it led them to conquer trillions of worlds and hundreds of galaxies. They were almost as greatly feared as the Daleks, and they rivaled the Time Lords in power… and they were almost as ancient." He paused, looking pensive. "My people called them the Taledrevans, but I think most commonly they're known as the Helials."

As he said these words, the ship's pulse seemed to slow for a second, almost as though the very mention of its creators alerted it.

"On the other hand, maybe you haven't heard of them because they never tried to take over this galaxy, or any of the nearby galaxies," the Doctor added to Jack. "The Time Lords' presence here discouraged them. They were imperialist, but they knew where they could not win. The Time Lords and the Helials generally avoided each other."

"How come you're speaking of them in the past tense?" asked Martha. "What happened to them?"

"They vanished," he answered simply. "Way back at the start of the Time War, knowing that the Helials hated the Daleks as much as anyone, the Time Lords tried to ask them for assistance. But by the time the messengers got to Taledrev, the entire Helial population, throughout their empire, was gone. Nobody was sure what happened to them, but now," he looked around, "I think I know where they went."

The group had split up again, once Ianto pointed the Doctor in the direction they had seen the cyborg.

"Right," the Doctor said, "Gwen, Ianto, I want you with me and Donna. Show us exactly where you saw it and exactly what it did." Turning back to Jack and Martha, he instructed, "You two, go the other way. It could have gone anywhere by now."

And so each group moved in opposite directions, and as they walked past another set of controls, Donna saw the Doctor twitch. "Stop fidgeting, Spaceman!" she scolded. "You'll have plenty of time to look around once we've shut this thing off!"

The Doctor shrugged, unembarrassed. "I can't help it! I don't say this a lot, but this place is magnificent."

"When you say that this is 'another' Void Ship," asked Ianto, "Are you referring to that sphere Yvonne and Rajesh were always going on about?"

Surprised, the Doctor said, "You catch on quickly."

"I've had lots of practice," Ianto shrugged. "Besides, you see a great mysterious polyhedron appearing in Torchwood Tower out of nowhere, you think of a great mysterious sphere that also appeared out of nowhere."

Impressed, the Doctor told him, "Yes, that sphere was a Void Ship, although judging from what I've seen here, it was very crude. I have no idea where the Daleks developed that technology. Perhaps they stole it."

"So that cyborg we saw earlier," Gwen interrupted, "was that a Helial?"

"I don't think so." The Doctor's face was grim. Gwen started to speak, but then the Doctor continued, "This ship is almost empty except for us, the cyborg, dead Daleks, and these security droids you told me about. I would guess that it had been abandoned. The possibility of the Helials' continuing existence is alarming, but if I'm right, what we should be worried about is what is now controlling the ship." He paused. "If I'm right. I just hope it isn't what I think it is."

The others looked at him curiously, but the Doctor didn't elaborate. They kept walking, until Gwen recognized the cluster of Dalek shells from before.

"It was here," she said, stopping.

The Doctor paused to look around, but Ianto nudged him and pointed at the pile of ash on the floor by the Daleks. "That was Jimmy Stones."

The Doctor winced.

"And the cyborg was right here." Ianto walked to where he knew it had stood before.

"How long ago was this?" asked the Doctor, striding to the control panel and looking it over.

"About half an hour ago."

The Doctor cursed. "Damn! She could have gone anywhere by now." He looked up past the controls at the wall, and he put a hand on it. Then he pressed his ear against it.

"This must be the core of the ship," he said, listening closely. "If I could access the main computer… Let's see, there must be a way inside."

The Doctor stepped back, scrutinizing the wall for a moment, before turning around to look at Gwen and Ianto. "The Helials obsessively used hexagons in their architecture, so if you see any sort of hexagonal panel in the wall, let me know," he instructed. "And be quick about it. We have got to find this cyborg before she finds us."

The two members of the Torchwood team both nodded and continued down the hall. Donna, on the other hand, looked at him oddly. "What was that all about?" she asked.

The Doctor didn't answer immediately. A wistful look had appeared in his eyes, and though his face was very serious, Donna thought she saw a small, slightly hopeful smile.

"If I'm right," he said quietly, "you'll see what this is about. If I'm not right, it won't matter." Seeing his companion's confused frown, he added, "Your father died a few months after I met you, right?"

Donna nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Imagine that you just found that he may actually be alive."

Donna stared at him in bewilderment and trepidation. "Doctor, what is going on?" she demanded.

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, his expression still dour, but he looked as though he was contemplating how to answer.

"Doctor!" Ianto called, cutting him off. He and Donna looked at each other, then ran down the hall after him.

"You found something?" Donna asked. "That was fast."

Ianto pointed; just as the Doctor had predicted, there was a hexagonal doorway on the wall between two panels. The door was already open.

"It opened up when we approached it," Gwen told him. "The liquid crystal disappeared, leaving this."

"I thought it was weird," Ianto said. "If this is the core of the ship, surely it would be under maximum security?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Somebody in there likes you, I suppose," he said happily. "Or me."

He grinned, and strolled through the doorway. Donna and Ianto followed, and found themselves in a narrow passage, much smaller than the first corridor they had come through, it was barely large enough for one man to walk through. It was much more dimly lit than the other hallways in the ship, and when they entered, the background resonance that was audible throughout the ship was a bit louder, seemingly confirming the Doctor's theory that this part of the ship contained its most important mechanisms.

They could see brighter light at the end of the passage some thirty feet away. Before starting off, the Doctor turned to Ianto.

"Run back and find Jack," he whispered, so quietly that Ianto leaned closer to hear him. "Show him where to find us. We may need his help."

Ianto nodded, and ran back out the door and out of sight. Then, warning the others to keep quietly, the Doctor slowly led them down the passage. As they neared the brightly lit room Donna supposed was the core, the Doctor stopped and took a deep breath, as though he were bracing himself for something. Then he peered into the room.

Donna and Gwen saw the Doctor's face drain of all color, and his eyes begin to water. He then stepped into the room, his eyes fixed on a point to his left. Donna entered, and gasped.

They were standing in a large, domed room, with white circuit boards lining the round walls, and there was a console in the center covered with similar controls to the ones in the control room outside. The Doctor, however, was looking at a blonde woman standing by the wall, who was watching them closely with a calculating expression, as though she were expecting them. She clearly was the cyborg Gwen and Ianto had described, judging by the mechanical implants on her face and scalp, and her artificial hand. Donna looked at Gwen for confirmation, and the latter nodded.

"My God," Donna whispered, turning back to look at the woman. "Her face!"

The Doctor ignored her. He walked up to the cyborg, until he stood right in front of her, his eyes fixed on hers. The Doctor's right hand twitched, as though he were resisting the urge to touch the woman's face.

"Rose," he whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Donna gaped at him. "Rose? As in Rose Tyler? Your Rose?"

The Doctor shook his head, and stepped back from her. "No," he said. "It's something else; something has taken over her mind."

"But she was dead!" Donna turned back to look at Rose. "You said so yourself!"

"Obviously she survived." The Doctor's voice shook, but pausing to retain his composure, his horrified expression was replaced with one of fury.

"Who are you?" he demanded of the cyborg. "Identify yourself!"

Rose stepped back, and answered, "I am designated Eve of the Vanguard Existential Ship _Eternal_, Registry Alpha 3-3-5 Delta 8-1-D, Navigation and Defense."

Her voice, monotonous and half-metallic, made Donna shiver.

"I was right," the Doctor said, his voice dangerously calm. He paced around Eve of the Eternal, and she turned around to continue looking at him. "It's the main computer of this ship, an artificial intelligence spliced onto Rose's body and using her brain as a memory base."

"The knowledge and memories of the human, Rose Tyler, belong to me now," Eve confirmed. "Through her, I can access information about you, Doctor of the Tardis, Last of the Time Lords." She then turned to Donna. "You are unknown to me," she said simply, before moving on to look at Gwen. "Your presence, however, is impossible. The human Gwyneth has been dead for many years."

Gwen tilted her head in confusion, trying to interpret this statement. The Doctor, however, was unfazed. "Tell me, how did Rose come to be inside this Void ship? You can talk to me, Eve of the _Eternal_. Surely her memories tell you that much!"

Eve stepped backward again, and paced a few steps to the side, her cold eyes never leaving his. "The Helials were to remain stationary in the Abyss until the end of the Gallifreyan Time War, but the _Eternal_ was damaged by a second transcendentally existential vessel, one not of Taledrevan making," she told him. "The collision cracked the Abyss, and the foreign vessel fell through the breach."

"What's the Abyss?" Gwen asked the Doctor.

"Another word for the Void," he said quickly, and turned his attention back to Eve, smiling for the first time since he had entered the room. He raised his head back to glance upward with an enlightened expression. "So that's where the Dalek's Void Ship came from."

Eve ignored this statement, so the Doctor presumed that he was right. She continued, "This vessel was damaged by the collision, causing it to remain stationary and dysfunctional. As is part of the ship's protocols, it initiated the self-repair program. As the repairs began, however, the fissure inexplicably reversed into a deadly spatial breach, through which flowed millions of Daleks and unclassified cybernetic humanoids, which the human's memories tell me are called Cybermen." She looked at Gwen for a moment, before turning back to the Doctor. "The Helials were greatly alarmed by this, because they feared the Daleks, but after the last of the Daleks appeared, they were followed by a solitary human female. The Helials correctly decided that she possibly bore responsibility for the occurrence, and they needed information concerning the Daleks and the Time War."

"So they saved her," the Doctor breathed.

Eve bowed her head in a small, acknowledging nod. "She was dying," she said noncommittally. "There is no oxygen in Nonexistence, and her respiratory system had collapsed by the time the Helials took her into the ship, so she was placed on life support. Even then, however, she couldn't be revived."

"Why not?" asked Gwen. "If you could cure her…"

Eve turned back to Gwen, her head tilted, staring at her for a long time, but not answering. The Doctor looked between them for a moment, before he asked, "Why couldn't she be revived?"

Eve's gaze snapped back to him. "She had been exposed to nihility."

Irritated at the cyborg's ambiguous answer, Donna snapped, "What does that mean?"

"She had been exposed to nihility," Eve repeated.

Shaking her head, Donna turned to the Doctor for an answer. His anger was replaced by an expression of exhaustion and sadness, but he replied, "The concept of true nonexistence, of true nothingness is beyond the comprehension of most species." He glanced at Eve, before continuing, "Imagine it, Donna. No light, no dark, no heat, no cold, no sound or silence, no touch, no up nor down, nothing concrete, not even time."

Donna looked off into space, thinking hard on the Doctor's words, but after a moment, she shook her head again, and the Doctor nodded.

"You can't imagine it, can you?" he said. "It's beyond human comprehension, but Rose saw and felt the Void. She saw true nihility." He paused, before adding in a hushed voice, "She must have gone insane."

Hearing this, Eve replied, "Her condition went beyond insanity. Every neuron in her central nervous system ceased to function. Every nervous function, voluntary and involuntary, had stopped. Therefore, the human was wired cybernetically into the _Eternal's_ medical systems."

She turned her face to the right for a moment, so that the implants would be more visible.

The Doctor nodded and put his hands in his pocket. "Cybernetic life support; the implants perform the functions for her."

As he spoke, he saw movement behind Eve, and glanced over her shoulder just long enough to see Jack and Martha enter the room quietly, Ianto close behind them. The Doctor quickly looked back at Eve, praying that she hadn't noticed. Fortunately, her attention had returned to Gwen, who suddenly spoke up.

"All right, you got her breathing again," Gwen said quickly, and the Doctor realized that she, perhaps having seen Martha and Jack enter too, was carefully keeping the cyborg's attention on her. "Then what?"

Eve blinked, but replied, "The next task was to repair her neurons. By my relative timeline, this took many months."

"But surely she's been fixed up by now!" Gwen protested. "Why is she still wired to you?"

"The Daleks trapped in the Abyss attacked," Eve replied calmly. "They can last longer in nihility than a human, but desperate to escape it, they attacked this vessel."

"That's why there's dead Daleks all over the place here," the Doctor surmised.

"The ship suffered eight-six percent systems failure, and the primary memory base was destroyed," Eve continued. "Only the self-defense and self-repair remained operational. The Helials immediately abandoned the _Eternal_, and in their haste to escape the Daleks they left Rose Tyler, who was still wired into the medical bay. She was saved, however, because the self defense, though heavily damaged, succeeded in annihilating the invaders."

The Doctor looked enraged again.

"Then once the Daleks are destroyed, the self-repair comes on again," he snarled. "You needed something to store your backup data, so you grabbed the nearest thing to a memory base you had: the brain of a human being who conveniently was already wired into your systems!"

Eve said nothing as Donna gasped again at these words. Behind the cyborg, the Doctor noticed Jack pull a small, cylindrical object from one of his pockets, and again, he looked back to keep Eve's attention on them. Gwen, however, beat him to it.

"What about Rose?" she hissed indignantly.

The Doctor shook his head. "Rose herself, her consciousness, has been shoved into a corner of her brain, most likely the subconscious, which, to a logical entity like Eve, serves no useful purpose except to subdue the host. Can't have her interfering with operations, can you?" He was now visibly shaking with anger. "Bloody self-repairing ships! Well, thank you, Eve of the _Eternal_! That was all I needed to know."

He looked past her. "Now, Jack!" he shouted.

Eve swung around, just as Jack lunged at her, shoving her against the wall. The former swung her arm upwards to strike at Jack viciously, but he pulled it down and plunged the syringe into her shoulder, and stepped back. Just as rapidly, Eve reached up and grabbed Jack's neck. He gagged as Gwen and the Doctor ran to help, but this was unnecessary. Eve slowed, let go of Jack's throat, and fell back against the wall, her eyes falling shut. The Doctor ran to her as she slid down the wall, completely unconscious.

If Jack had been upset at Rose's fate, he hid it well. His face held none of the horror that the Doctor's had when he had entered the room, but he too looked tired. "Well, that went smoothly," he said.

"You have Gwen to thank for that," the Doctor said. "You were consciously distracting Eve, weren't you?"

"I don't know why she's so interested in me," Gwen said, "but I figured that she might not notice Jack if I kept her attention on me."

"She's interested in you because you're an anomaly," the Doctor said. "Rose's memories tell Eve that you're Gwyneth from Cardiff, because you look extraordinarily like her. But Gwyneth has been dead for a long time, and your presence here makes no sense to Eve, even though you're not actually Gwyneth."

Gwen frowned, trying to work this out, but before anybody could say anything else, the ship's pulse slowed to its original pace, and to its original pitch.

"Ah!" Jack exclaimed, relieved. "That's the sound of the system shutting down. It's stopped going into black hole mode, then."

"But can't it still control her?" asked Martha, speaking up for the first time.

Jack shook his head. "I don't think so. Apparently it needs Rose's brain completely alert, otherwise it would still be forming the black hole. Since she's unconscious now…"

"But Eve isn't unconscious," the Doctor pointed out as he gathered Rose into his arms and stood with a grunt. "We've got to get Rose out of here and disconnect her from Eve before it adapts. We also don't want the defense systems kicking in again. Talking of unconsciousness," he said to Jack suddenly, "where did that anesthetic come from?"

Jack shrugged. "I always carry them with me. You never know when they come in handy."

The Doctor snorted. "Knowing you, very frequently."

At that moment, the opposite wall rippled, and the Doctor looked to the side in time to see a security droid appear.

"Alert!" it shrieked in a gravelly voice. "Protect the central processor! Intruders!"

It raised its incinerator beam, but Jack leapt in the way as it fired. Unable to die, the immortal jerked back with a howl of pain, but he did not disintegrate into a pile of ash like Jimmy Stones did. Heaving Rose over his shoulder, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver with his free hand and pointed it to the automaton. When he flipped the switch, sparks flew from the robot's joints and it fell to the floor, twitching.

"Jack," the Doctor said slowly, "on my signal, take the others and get then to the Tardis."

"What about you?" asked Martha.

The Doctor shot her a look. "Leave it to me."

The wall rippled again, and another droid appeared. The Doctor again turned on his sonic screwdriver, but this time nothing happened. The droid paused and quivered for a moment, but apart from that, nothing happened.

"Oh shit," Jack groaned. "They can adapt to weaponry."

"Run!" the Doctor yelled.

* * *

**A/N:**

"Here is no water but only rock..." - T.S. Eliot, _The Wasteland_.

Revision includes: Gwen's role in distracting Eve, and the security robots that attack the Doctor once he subdues Eve.


End file.
